The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness training in the treatment of chronic pain, estimate the degree of mindfulness before and after intervention, and to describe the participants experience of mindfulness training. Mindfulness is defined as moment to moment, non-judgmental awareness. After the treatment of chronic pain 16 patients were offered and nine agreed to participate in mindfulness training. The intervention group took part in an 8-week group-program. The comparison group, not randomized, was 16 former patients.

The last years trends of increasing globalisation and the decreasing importance of the nationstate has led to rising flows of travellers and information throughout the globe. This has affected the competition between destinations; they are now competing in a global market. The importance of placemarketing and representing a place identity, is today essential to attract customers from around the world. The purpose of this essay was to examine how Iceland as a place is represented through the photographs in horse tourism. The research questions asked were: How is the Icelandic landscape represented in photographs? How is people and horses represented in the landscape? And how can the horse be analysed as a part of the Icelandic landscape? The method used for research was image-analysis, a qualitative approach where horse tourism-websites and photographs on these websites were strategically selected.

During the last decades the importance of IT has increased for businesses all over the world. It has transferred from only being used in administrative purposes to become more integrated to the core business. Due to the financial crisis in 2009 and increasing globalization, IT is facing the challenge of lower costs and increased efficiency. This requires IT-departments to embrace new strategies in order to fulfill these new tougher demands.Lean is a business development concept that aims to lower costs through more effective processes by removing all activities that does not create any value from the end customer?s perspective.

Background: Today businesses are largely structured in projects and temporary organizations. In many companies, the ability to pursue projects is decisive for the business efficiency and competitiveness. The risk literature do not discuss identification and handling ofproject risk in building- and construction companies to a large extent, which has led us to investigate how project risk can be treated and handled in Swedish building- and construction companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to cover and describe business risk in Swedish building- and construction projects with focus on different risks and risk tools, and also to modify a model for evaluating the business risk maturity. Realization: This thesis has both traces of a case study and a cross-section study and examines eight different companies that are active in the building- and construction business.

In a world obsessed with the visual our homes have gone viral. Through the frame of Instagram family members seems switched to furnitures and the so-called smartphone surely opened the door to new, digital places. Social media has become part of the life of many and, as an effect, also of the way we do our homes. In the era of digitalization, the concept of sharing has gotten some new dimensions where the borders of private and public, here and there, becomes blurred. Why do people post pictures of their homes on Instagram? How is it performed and what boundaries are pushed in the process? These have been some of the main topics guiding this thesis.

In October 2009, a new decision was made concerning the administration of predators which resulted in a new wolf policy in Sweden. This meant that the wolf population now should be limited to 210 individuals by harvest. The new policy also recognized that the public acceptance of this species must increase and the genetic status improved. In the 17th of December a decision was taken by the Swedish parliament that it should become legal to hunt wolves in Sweden. The wolf hunt resulted in debate on a large scale amongst people, some thought of it as a good decision while others thought it was wrong.

In order to facilitate design and maintenance of such a large and complex site as a nuclear power plant, all system functions must be described in a stringent way. In the past, these descriptions consisted of text documents and logical diagrams, but today there are an increasing number of object-oriented programs available on the market which might be used for this purpose. This Master Thesis has made a closer study of one of these programs named Rational Rose. The principal of the program is to facilitate software design and development, not to create models of plants. However, using the program the same way as developing software, specifying actors then gradually extend the model with use cases, use cases diagrams etc, the same methods can be used when modelling plants.

The background of this study stemmed from the notion that the majority of homeless women with substance abuse, most of all, wanted a secured place of their own to stay. Few involved professionals agreed and instead of perceiving housing as a human right the women were mostly offered various types of short-term social housing. The purpose of this study was thus to examine and analyze how professionals attached to the social services and public housing companies in Gothenburg explained that homeless women with substance abuse were excluded from accommodation on the open housing market. The qualitative approach included ten interviews with eleven professionals in Gothenburg. The theoretical framework consisted mainly of Bourdieu's analytical concepts of field, doxa as well as social, economic and cultural, alongside symbolic capital.

The society today, reflects a high welfare, where the human being has a better financial position than before. This has generate that more money is spend on pleasure and events. A result of that can be the development of a new line of business; The industry of experience.This kind of branch is fast growing in the Swedish labour market. The characteristics of this branch are, depending of trends, continuous variations and integrated education.A new phenomenon within this branch is ?Centre of experience?.

With increasing energy prices and increased focus on the environment we saw the need for companies to get control over their energy use and their emission of carbon dioxid. An analysis tool that integrates both these areas is, with our knowledge, not available on the market today. Therefore, our project became to develop such a tool.By doing this degree project we would like to clarify that energy consumption and environmental impact are integrated. The less energy consumed by today?s society the smaller the environmental impact will be.

In this masters paper the change that Lidköping public library went through between 1952 and 1959 is described and analysed. The aim is to describe and analyse the reactions that arose at the time that the first professional librarian, Jörgen Elgström, acted to create a modern public library in the town. The issues that are handled are: How did the local politicians and the general public react to the process of change that was started by Jörgen Elgström? What were the consequences for the staff, the premises, lending, child and youth activities? The paper is concentrated around the period 1952-1959 because this is the time when Jörgen Elgström was working in Lidköping. Jörgen Elgström has a central role in the paper.

Denna uppsats handlar om de val som görs vid bevarande av historiska trädgårdar inom National Trust, en av Englands största förvaltare av historiska trädgårdar, samt hur dessa val påverkar den historia som berättas på platsen. De tre frågeställningar som behandlas i uppsatsen är: (1) Hur beslutar National Trust vilken historia som ska berättas på platsen? (2) Vilka riktlinjer och bevarandeprinciper ligger till grund för dessa beslut? och (3) Hur har National Trust omsatt riktlinjerna vid restaureringarna av National Trusts trädgård på Standen? Syftet är att synliggöra valen, på vilka grunder de fattas och genom att ställa detta i relation till hur den slutliga utformningen blivit få en bild av hur National Trust väljer att berätta en plats historia. I den första delen görs en genomgång av trädgårdsbevarandets historia inom National Trust, teoretiska begrepp samt riktlinjer och strategier som är aktuella i dagsläget. I den andra delen görs en fallstudie av en anläggning där det för närvarande pågår ett restaureringsprojekt, Standen. I den tredje delen diskuteras de tre frågeställningar mot bakgrund av litteratur, dokument, intervjuer och platsbesök. Genom att analysera hur förändringar har genomförts på Standen jämförs hur riktlinjerna och principerna implementerats och hur detta påverkar den berättelse som presenteras för besökaren. Slutsatsen från uppsatsen är att National Trust har genomfört ett omfattande förändrings-­ och moderniseringsarbete under 2000-talet som lett till att de lokala anläggningarna fått ett betydande inflytande över hur en plats betydelse uttrycks. National Trusts riktlinjer utgår från internationellt erkända dokument såsom Florensdeklarationer och Burra charter men de också utvecklat egna strategier för att öka det lokala engagemanget och tillgängligheten som framgångsrikt implementerats på Standen. Besluten om vilken historia som ska berättas har fattats i nära samarbete med centrala organ inom National Trust, medan besluten om hur den berättas i stor utsträckning sker lokalt..

The retail sector is in a continuous development. What demand looks like and where the consumers want to shop has changed during the last years. Market place, demand, supply, external factors and politics affect how the retail sector develops. To make a market place attractive a variety of factors have to be considered.In Hong Kong a model called Rail & Property is used, this means that the development of the subway is integrated with the development of the city. The model is both successful and economically sustainable.Today the supply of shops and services in Stockholm´s subway stations is rather small.

This thesis explores strategic communication management within the non-profit sector. Communication models need to be adapted to the specific sector as different sectors require different approaches of strategic communication management. In the spring of 2013, the non-profit organization Save the Children Sweden initiated a communication model based on volunteer communicators. The following study explores how non-profit organizations can manage communications with a focus on volunteers as a communication resource. The applied research questions concern how volunteers may be integrated into communication activities, the opportunities and challenges connected to involving volunteer communicators and how this may affect the role of the organization's employed communicators.

My research interest in the upcoming paper is the increased need for promotion of schools. I. e. the individual school´s needs to be able to show its existence, in the huge flow and availability of information; schools and universities, study circles, streamed lectures on the Internet, public schools and private schools, different educational directions, et cetera. The schools? needs to market itself, make good PR and sell their pedagogical idea, and that has become increasingly important. My purpose is to clarify how music teachers, in the Swedish primary and secondary school, skills and competences are used in outreach activities within but also outside, the school premises.