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.

AimThe purpose of this study is to, from a perspective of a PE teacher, look at how teachers of physical education in elementary school designs and assesses the teaching of swimming. The issues underlying the study are as follows:Which elements are included in the swimming education and how do teachers work with these operations?What does the PE teachers classify as swimming ability and what do teachers experience as obstacles for the students development of swimming ability?How do the PE teachers interpret the knowledge requirement in Lgr 11?MethodThe study is based on six interviews of qualitative nature, with PE teachers from various municipalities in the region of Mälardalen.ResultsThe result yielded by the study is that the swimming classes can take different forms depending on whom the teacher is. Common to all the teachers in the study is that they teach emergency management and lifesaving. When it later comes to teaching how to swim and practice, the teachers who teach in the younger age groups work more concentrated and continuously with swimming, while the teachers who work with the older age groups just checks whether students can swim or not.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to study two subject gate-ways within the field of Swedish higher education and academic research, concerning structuring and selection of Internet resources to facilitate information retrieval for their target groups, and also to study two co-operation projects in the same field, one national and one European, to see how the co-operation is being carried through and how the gateways in the projects can serve from a wider perspective. The gateways, AGORA and NOVAGate, are being studied mainly by their Web sites and two e-mail interviews with persons responsible for the gateways. Facts about the national project are principally based on an interview with BIBSAM. The European Renardus is being studied out of articles and information on the Web site. From the results of the study it is being clear that the purpose of the gateways is to make a quality-selection of information accessible via the Internet and thereby facilitate for their target groups to find usable information.

Children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) and children with specific language impairment (SLI) may be affected emotionally and psychosocially by their disorders. Thus, it is important to investigate the psychosocial risk factors that these children are exposed to. The aim of this study was to examine how parents assess the emotional and psychosocial well-being of children with CLP and children with SLI, and if the two parental groups differ in their assessments using the standardized instrument Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL). Participants in the study were the parents of ten children with unilateral and bilateral CLP between ages 6;7-9;0 (mean age 7;5) and the parents of 13 children between ages 6;4-8;8 (mean age 7;3) who are attending preschools and schools for children with SLI. These parents were asked to complete the questionnaires CBCL and Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ). The children with CLP had lower scores than the children with SLI in all domains of the CBCL, indicating that these children with CLP had better emotional and psychosocial well-being.

Management consulting firms are an important part of the knowledge economy and they capitalize on the analytical ability and knowledge of their employees. Much research have been made on large consulting firms and their management of knowledge, but little is known about how small consultancies manage their knowledge. Even less is known about the management of knowledge in small consultancies specialized in change management. These firms rely solely on senior consultants and focus on the human aspect of organizational development. This thesis aims to show how these firms manage their knowledge and also provide an understanding of why.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how the relationship between humans and nature is expressed in the imaginative literature. My aim is to identify ideological reproductions in the analyzed works. Therefore I have chosen one work from late 19th century and one from late 20th century. This makes it possible to examine the contextual anchorage of the found ideological expressions. The study?s theoretical framework is primarily based on ecocriticism, and especially on Greg Garrard?s and Kate Soper?s thoughts.

The current study aimed to test the public self-consciousness impact on creative performance. An experimental design was used in which 40 participants were randomly assigned to two groups, one of which was the experimental group and the other was the control group. A mirror was used in the experimental group to induce public self-consciousness among the participants while they performed creativity tests. A consequence test was used where the participant had to give suggestions for the given scenario "What would happen if everyone became blind?" which was then measured in the number of proposals (fluency).

This thesis is about how nationalism is constructed from two competing groups, Kosovo Albanian and Serbs. Kosovo for Serbs is a deep symbolic value that continues to be a Serbian identification. This is one of the main reasons why no Serbian politician has the courage to give it up. On the other side of the coin we have the Kosovo Albanians that only settles for independence. To recognize the independence for Kosovo could jeopardize the security for the Serbian minority living in Kosovo.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the companies on Nasdaq OMXS Large and Mid Cap to see if there are interesting patterns regarding their WACC assumptions, used when performing impairment tests on goodwill, during 2007-2009. If so, can we explain these patterns? MethodWe have gathered information about the WACC assumptions presented in the annual reports of the 133 companies that were listed on OMXS Large and Mid Cap during the spring of 2011. To complement this quantitative information we have also conducted an interview with Peter Malmqvist and contacted eight of the companies that were in the study.ConclusionWe can conclude that not all companies present their WACC assumptions in the annual report, even though IAS 36 states that this should be done. Of the 45 companies that were included in our study, eight had lowered their WACC during 2008 and increased it in 2009.

This Masters Degree thesis aims at giving an answer to what underlying ideologies are at work in digitizing our cultural heritage. Other questions to be answered are who are benefiting from a digitized cultural heritage and who are not, and what different opinions about digitizing our cultural heritage can be identified. Two studies are made in this thesis, one of Swedish political documents that concern digitizing our cultural heritage, libraries, museums and archives, and the other one is a study of documentation of three Swedish digitizing projects. In the first study three different, but closely associated ideologies are identified, namely a preserving, b giving access and c a mixture of both, and these are shown in a model. In the second study this model is then used to identify the ideologies of one project from each sector of the so called ABM-sector Archives, Libraries and Museums.

What Places Adolescents and Adults, Respectively, in Need of Social Assistance? A Qualitative Study of How Social Workers Whom Administrate Financial Assistance for Adolescents and Adults, Respectively, Describe Reasons Behind the Need of Social Assistance Amongst Their ClientsThe purpose of this essay was to study and compare how social workers whom administrate social assistance for adolescents and adults, respectively, describe reasons behind the need of social assistance amongst their clients. This was done due to the use of qualitative interviews with a total of six social workers. Of these six, three administrated social assistance for adolescents while the other three did the same for adults. Prior research of poverty attribution greatly inspired this essay.

Social medias impact recent years has been huge and an increasing number of companies have started using the services. The benefits for companies to be available thru social media are many and the costs are low. Social media makes it easier for companies to get in touch with their customers and at the same time they reach out to a lot of people since the number of frequent user?s constantly increase. A major part of the information that is available is seen from a company?s perspective and what benefits they can take advantage of thru social media.

This essay focus on the social media Twitter and how three Swedish PR practitioners view and use communication strategies for this social media. Twitter was created 2006 and is kind of a new channel in the digital world. The micro blog has over these few years attracted 175 million users across the world. In Sweden there is 91 000 registered users and according to a survey, 11 000 of them are active by tweeting once a day.Twitter is highly current and all kinds of people are using the social media, for example, artists, companies and individuals. Twitter is with its highly number of users building a new market for organizations to find their stakeholders.

Introduction: Child maltreatment, perpetrated by a caregiver, is a major health problem. The child suffers not only at the instance the abuse or maltreatment occurs, the consequences may persist into adulthood. The specialist nurse in child health (CHN), who works at a child health care unit, comes across almost every child growing up in Sweden. The CHN has an opportunity to implement primary prevention with the family during the child's first years. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe the CHN experiences regarding primary prevention to avoid domestic child maltreatment.

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to investigate teachers' professional attitude to homework as a method. The study will also provide answers to the purpose for which the homeworks are used in teaching and if the individual circumstances and needs are met by this method.Method: Qualitative research was conducted through interviews with four teachers from three different schools. In addition, published surveys were used in support of reasoning.Results: Neither the curriculum or the syllabus mentions homework. There are no directives for how much time should be dispensed with and the extent of a homework should be. In teacher training literature the homework is not discussed.