In recent years, the Swedish railway track system has been neglected in terms of capacity and maintenance. To adapt the existing system to current traffic load there is a great need for extensive improvement and maintenance. Shortcomings are especially occurring on older embankments running over soft subgrades. To select the most suitable method for reinforcement of the embankment, it is important to evaluate different solutions from a life cycle cost perspective. In long-term perspective, it is often shown that a method with low investment cost causes a higher maintenance cost and a shorter technical lifetime.

In this essay we have examined how social workers experience their positions as a public authority person in a society of democracy. As a public officer you have to follow rules and obey the law, which can be difficult if they don't agree with your personal opinion and values. In social work you work with people in a vulnerable situation and it may become extremely demanding to stand between the directions of established public administration and your own opinions. We have interviewed ten social workers working in social childcare division and analysed how they experience their situation at work. Our starting point is the critical theory of professor Lennart Lundquist about how democracy works in Swedish administrations.

The purpose of this article has been to elucidate social secretaries? and teachers? experiences of collaboration around children in need of society?s intervention. We wanted to examine what the difficulties could be, according to their experience, and how they handled them. Additionally our aim was to analyze whether their method of dealing with the obstacles were likely to succeed, viewed from the perspective of system theory. In order to achieve our purpose we used a qualitative method and interviewed four social secretaries and four teachers.

Uppsala County has ambitious environmental aims for the planned residential area inÖstra Sala backe. In this thesis different energy sources have been evaluated todetermine which system that would be most favorable given currently availableinformation about the project. Planned energy usage has been divided into tap waterheating, space heating and power. Three base case scenarios were made with districtheating, small scale bio fuel and heat pump. Solar power and solar heating were thensimulated and the production from the two could individually be deducted from theenergy need in the base cases, constituting 9 different scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to examine preschool educators conceptions on gender pedagogy. Based on preschool teachers own words, we want to get an insight into the use of gender in the curriculum in preschool classes. We also examine the conditions and setbacks of conducting a gender-sensitive educational way of working the curriculum.In order to examine our research question, we choose the method of qualitative interview, and previous research in the theory of gender pedagogy from a sociocultural perspective, in which social interaction is very important. We have interviewed five educators in preschool classes, all with similar educational backgrounds.In the results and analyses section the educators' definition of gender pedagogy is presented and how they take part in gender educational theories strategies. The result of the survey show that the importance of the educator?s own approach to and further education in, the subject matter, makes it possible to really understand the gender norms.

Background: Borderline personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that one to two percent of the population and at least every fourth patient that have received treatment at a psychiatric clinic has been diagnosed with. BPD is most common in women between teenage and early adulthood. Purpose: The aim of this literature study was to emphasize the nursing care of patients diagnosed with BPD within different perspectives. Method: A literature study was conducted to get a deeper understanding for the nursing care of patients with BPD. The search for pertinent articles, answering to the aim of the study, was done in different databases.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the legal protection against sexual harassment at work functions, and where to draw the line. The study is limited to focus on the sexual harassment directed at women from men, because it usually occurs that way even though only a few report the incidents. The results are discussed from a gender perspective on how the distribution of power is between men and women as a way to explain sexual harassment.Sexual harassment is currently protected by the discrimination law and the EU principle of equal treatment for men and women. For a behavior to be considered as sexual harassment it has to be unwanted by the receiving party and the person practicing the harassments must be aware that the behavior is perceived as offensive. The behavior shall be of a sexual nature and contribute to a disadvantage for the victim in the form of a violation of that persons integrity.It is the victim that determines whether the behavior is perceived as sexual harassment or not, what one person believes is a friendly behavior may be perceived as offensive by another.

A quantitative and qualitative study of all LIS Master theses applying a gender perspective on children-centred issues previously published at the Swedish School of Library and Information Studies. Two hypotheses were investigated: 1) studies with explicit gender perspective express strongest urgency; 2) study results confirm predeclared assumptions. A content analysis of all theses, and closer thematic analysis of ten, form the main question: Is there a risk that the theses? similarities in terms of urgency and confirmation create predictable conclusions? The theses? motivations behind the choices of research problems are explored in the content analysis. Two categories of motivation can be identified: 1) personal; 2) generally applicable.

Media often discusses school, teachers and students. These discussions are often based on an adult perspective and students' views on the subject are not enhanced. Therefore, this paper intends to examine students' views on what they think makes a good teacher. Previous research shows that a good teacher can create the conditions for good learning based on the needs of students, and this is therefore important to investigate. The theoretical basis for this essay is the definition of an authentic teacher that which in this essay will be discussed from the point of view of Fibaek Laursen (2004).

When searching for better and more practical interfaces between users and their computers, additional or alternative modes of communication between the two parties would be of great use. This thesis handles the possibilities of using eye and head movements as well as voice input as these alternative modes of communication. One part of this project is devoted to find possible interaction techniques when navigating in a computer interface with movements of the eye or the head. The result of this part is four different controls of an interface, adapted to suit this kind of navigation, combined together in a demo application. Another part of the project is devoted to the development of an application, with voice control as primary input method.

Swedish healthcare has experienced increased economic pressure during the last decades and organizations have faced many changes. Managers and their roles in organizations have also been affected by the changes. Traditionally, managers in the healthcare sector are highly specialized doctors with a strong medical background. In the thesis, we study a big private healthcare company with an ambition to lead the development in the sector. In order to accomplish its goal, the company is trying to change the organization of managers.

Bankruptcy is a problem for the society in form of high costs for including suppliers, customers, employees, investors, banks, insurance companies etc. The purpose of this study is to confirm or dismiss a bankruptcy prediction model that has been developed in a previous Swedish study, in order to predict bankruptcy with help of specific key figures. The model has only been tested in a larger perspective where the population consisted of all small firms in Sweden, in this study the model´s reliability is tested by that it instead been applied to a minor perspective, where the population only includes Stockholm. With a quantitative approach of 12 different key figures from a total of 60 Swedish smaller registered companies in Stockholm between the years 2005-2007, has been studied. The companies are divided into two groups, companies with good financial health and companies that have ended up in bankruptcy.The results shows that the model is applicable in a smaller population, but some of the key figures do not generate essential or any type of information about bankruptcy, but the majority of the key figures in the model did.

This essay will treat questions regarding why we should read literature, more specifically fiction, in schools. My issues regards how the curriculums of the swedish school subject legitimizes reading of literature, and my main focus is on the curriculums themselves. As a complement, I have completed three interviews with professional teachers to see how they legitimize reading for the pupils and for themselves. I have also discussed the potential democratic values of teaching and reading literature in schools, and I discuss my results in relation to the "values" of the swedish schools. My study is based on a study of the old curriculums, completed by Magnus Persson in 2007.

Background: In the schools today it is common that teachers talk about children with special needs and children with ?Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? ? ADHD. You can often hear people discuss about children with ADHD from the teachers point of view, that pupils are hard to handle and that they do not know how to create a good relationship with them. But you seldom hear anyone talk about school from the children?s perspective, how they feel, think and experience their school attendance. Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how a functional disability like ADHD can effect a childs schooling and also to show how pupils with ADHD themselves experience their school attendance and how they are being treated by teachers and other pupils.Method: In order to investigate this, five interviews was carried out with students in the the ages of 16-25.

The purpose of this study is to compare different ways to teach mathematics in the school's lower age groups, and to examine whether certain practices increase students' desire and motivation to learn the subject. The questions used to determine the purpose is the following: What vision has the students in the class at maths? How does the teaching of mathematics in the class look like?What vision has the students in the class at working with different approaches in education?Does the traditional approach  and the options that I am examining meet the steering documents requirements?  The essay is organized as a qualitative study. The study was conducted in an elementary school in Sweden, third grade. The methods used included interviews with students and observations in the classroom.