The aim of this thesis is to contribute to increased knowledge concerning students? information seeking in an electronic environment. Using a qualitative approach; focus groups interviews, a total of nine nursing students were interviewed in two groups. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with an analysis tool based upon Lucy Kuntz?s, Gary Marchionini?s and Carol C Kuhlthau?s models of the information seeking process.

This study examines the link between the individual and social network, what social forces and social mechanisms involved in the interaction between individuals and groups and how we can explain and consider this relationship with the aim of understanding this connection. Through qualitative interviews, based on interviews of six active members in the organization Young KRIS (Young Criminal?s Return in the Society) examines the active social processes that the young members undergo, and motivates those who have been outside the expected conformed and regular society, to be included in the regular community and how this can be explained. The study shows that the organization through high availability, openness, knowledge of the needs of young people, good treatment, range of meaningful activities, has created a great venue for the young to develop and thus regain their place in the society..

There are many different forms of financing for small businesses and two common financing options mentioned in the study, bank loans and Venture Capital.Venture Capital is a form of risk capital financing, investing in unlisted stock market. The feature of the arrangement is that those people are trying to find companies that can offer unique, attractive and in demand products on a strong growing market. Since VC-firms are taking a big risk in cooperation with the investment, the VC-company strong demands while assessments are made on the company will generate a return in the future.Bank loans are the most common form of financing for companies in the market. Requirements and assessment under the law is hard especially for small businesses because financing entails high risks. Banks require that the liquidity management in the enterprise should be stable because the bank's main objective is to repayment of debt and the interest payable on the capital.The purpose of this study is to examine the requirements and assessments VC-firms and banks make use of the financing of small businesses. .

In this Master's thesis, a direct-conversion receiver front-end has been designed in a 0.18um CMOS technology. Direct-conversion receivers (DCR) have obvious advantages over the heterodyne counterpart. Since the intermediate frequency (IF) is zero, the problem of image is circumvented. As a result, no front-end image reject filter is required and the channel selection requires only a low-pass filter, which makes it easy to integrate directly on chip. However, the DCR also suffers from several drawbacks such as extreme sensitivity to DC offsets, 1/f noise, local oscillator (LO) leakage/radiation, front-end nonlinearity and I/Q mismatch.

The Swedish alcohol policy has by tradition a restrictive composition, with high taxes and the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly as important elements. The Moderate Party has been powerful critics of the alcohol policy and has advocated a reformation. However, today the Moderate Party seems to have changed the attitude towards the alcohol policy and it even supports the Swedish initiative to create cooperation about alcohol matters at the EU level.This thesis examines why the Moderate Party has changed its attitude towards the restrictive alcohol policy. Three aspects have been considered: the rise of a European public policy, strategic choice, and the influence of the political environment. The paper discusses the problem from a strategic perspective, which means that the political change is viewed as a result of strategic considerations.The party has indeed been affected by all of the three aspects, although to different extent.

The product "urinal funnel" for women has fascinated me for a long time. Not only because it solves a practical problem in a simple way, but also because it challenges our definitions of gender and behaviour. This report describes the process of making a new design for a funnel, taking material, ergonomics and construction in consideration. It also includes structuring a launching of the product in Sweden. It starts up with a large amount of information gathering, both by interviewing testgroup-perticipants, but also by researching and evaluating the range of existing funnels.

The agricultural sector accounts for about 13 percent of the total load of greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2007). The Swedish objective to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions with 40 percentage units to the year of 2020, based upon the year of 1990, might imply stricter regulations for Swedish farmers. A regulation or other forms of economic incentives is probably necessary to reduce the emissions originating from the agricultural sector. This study aims to investigate the economic and managerial impact on two agricultural firms with differing production system given that a constraint on green house gas emissions is introduced. Gases included in this study are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

When the Soviet union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, a democratization began to develop. During the Jeltsin years, democracy in Russia was developing steadily, but since Putin became president at the turn of the century it has started to move back towards authoritarian rule. The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons for why the democracy in Russia never became consolidated and to understand why the country again has moved towards an authoritarian rule, like the one during the Soviet union.In order to fulfill the aim of this study, two theories were used. These were Linz and Stepan's consolidation theory, about the five arenas that have to be developed, and Samuel P. Huntington's theory about authoritarian nostalgia.

Background: War-related amputations are represented by a unique group of patients because of the wounds complexity and scope of several serious injuries. To prevent and avoid care suffering and suffering of the patient, this study focused on the nurse's way to manage and identify the needs of this unique group of patients who have suffered from war-related limb loss. To undergo a traumatic amputation is a big change for the victim, and the nurse has an important role in responding to the patient and their needs Aim: To illuminate nursing care of patients with war-related limb loss. Method: The chosen method was a literature review. The data consisted of nine qualitative and three quantitative studies.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att jämföra antibiotikabehandling med corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL)-behandling genom fotoaktivering av riboflavin vid bakteriell keratit. Att experimentellt undersöka om en viss stam av Pseudomonas aeruginosa kunde infektera cornealt epitel var också en del av studien.Metod: Litteraturstudie samt ett experiment med Pseudomonas aeruginosa och grisögon in vitro.Resultat: Dagens behandling av keratit är initial med antibiotika. I experimentella studier har CXL använts både i kombination med antibiotika och som enskild behandling. Positiva resultat från studier med CXL som behandling mot keratit har rapporterats.Resultatet av det experimentella försöket pekar på att den stam av Pseudomonas aeruginosa som användes i experimentet inte kan penetrera ett intakt epitel.Slutsats: CXL kan bli en viktig och användbar behandlingsform vid keratit, särskilt med tanke på den ökade antibiotikaresistensutvecklingen. Ytterligare forskning på området krävs dock innan metoden kan bli fullt vedertagen.För att kunna fastställa om stammen av Pseudomonas aeruginosa i det aktuella experimentet har virulensfaktorer för att ta sig in i ett oskadat epitel eller inte krävs fler försök..

The Private Equity industry has over the past years been booming and major external environmental changes have made the industry transform rapidly. Increased competition between Private Equity firms is one of the reasons why the industry has been and is being forced to focus more on addition of value through increased operational management. Consequently, the focus of value addition is by some said to be transferred away from deal making and financial skills, and into active operative management. This case study investigates how the portfolio management, and more specifically the measuring and management of performance, is carried out in a number of leading Swedish Private Equity funds with investments in the biotech sector. The biotech sector is characterized by extensive research and development, and many biotech companies often lack income and other measurable financial parameters in the initial phase.

Concerns for the environment and our impact on it are becoming more prevalant; however, we rarely act accordingly. Consumers mainly choose products based on perceived personal benefits despite the environmental motives that increasingly affect them. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the major drivers behind the purchase of ecological wine. A quantitative study was conducted, using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as an initial starting point. The subsequent model was then completed with three variables: environmental concern, feelings and word-of-mouth.

During the past year it has been made possible to buy back a company?s outstanding stock. This is done in order to change the capital structure towards a situation with less equity. A change in capital structure means a change in the cost of capital for a company and by that a change in the value for the stockholder. This Master Thesis studies the relation between capital structure and business risk.

In this essay the morphing of the interstate relations in the post-World War II Western Europe is taken in to consideration in discussing how these relations were stabilized and consolidated through community cooperation to achieve a state of stable peace. It concludes that the early 1900's of Western Europe comes close to being conditioned by Herz's security dilemma and then continues to analyze the development from this state to one of stable peace. In this analysis pivotal features of the ECSC, EEC and the EC are being scrutinized through the use of Boulding's Stable Peace theory and developments of the very same, in separate case studies, in order to account for the Communities? influence on the peace process.In doing this, conclusions are drawn that external pressures can be very effective in creating an incentive to move beyond an initial state of conflicting self-images and that a stabilizing process has got to provide a long term solution in order to sustain a trustful relationship. In order to provide this long term solution the community cooperations suggests that locking in through institutionalization, harmonization, and the creation of a state of irrevocable interdependence are highly effective..

The purpose of this thesis was to examine women's shelter representatives' views on domestic violence in same-sex relationships between women. The questions we posed were how women's shelter representatives relate to same-sex domestic violence, both from a theoretical and practical perspective, as well as if they are, or feel they should be, inclusive of women who are victims of same-sex domestic violence.We conducted a qualitative study, in which we interviewed eight women's shelter representatives. We then compared and linked our findings with previous research, including studies on the occurrence of same-sex violence, and ideas of similarity and differences between men's violence against women and same-sex domestic violence. We also linked our findings to theories on heteronormativity and structural theories surrounding same-sex domestic violence.We found that the competence and knowledge of women's shelter representatives varies greatly from individual to individual. Heteronormativity permeates the organisations to a great extent, from exclusive marketing and initial reception to a lack of interest regarding these issues.