Ear piercing performed in hairdressing salons and jewellery shops using a piercing gun has been set aside from the obligation to notify the local environmental and public health authorities, due to the use of disposable cassette with the piercing gun. According to the Swedish environmental code each practitioner are required to prevent any health hazards arisen from the operation. Local bacterial infection is the most frequent complication associated with the ear piercing procedure and to prevent the potential risk of such an event, hygiene conditions in both the premises and in procedures are essential. The purpose of the report was to examine the presence of ear piercing practitioners in Umeå and their current hygiene conditions. The study consisted of interviews with employees and managers on site whose answers was evaluated and compared to the general recommendations of The National Board of Health and Welfare.

The main aim of this study is to examine the development policies of Sweden and the European Union from a postcolonial perspective. Sweden and the European Union are increasingly coming to be viewed as normative powers rather than military powers. So how does the colonial past of the western societies affect the policies of today? Are there any signs of the power structures of the past, and if so, how are these power structures manifested in the development policies of today? Since both Sweden and the European Union have come to be viewed as normative powers they are compared with each other to highlight their similarities and differences. The results of the study shows that both Sweden and the European Union can be seen as carriers of western values and interests.

An information audit identifies, among other things, organizations information resources, the information flow and the needs of the information users. The purpose of this masters thesis was to describe the management of information within a local unit of Borås municipality by putting an information audit-method in practice. The focus was on three issues: What information needs could be seen in the organization? How does the information flow through the organization? How does Sugan Henczels seven-stage model serve as a tool to map the management of information within the local unit? The study only described the situation at a certain time at the chosen organization. The seven-stage information audit model was revised and adjusted to the studied organization by only carrying out four of the seven steps: Planning, Data collection, Data analysis and Data evaluation.

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to analyse the effects of women's representation on actual political outcome. Quantitative method and materials are used to study the consequences of women's political participation in Swedish municipals.Many theorists think that women have special interests, different from men?s, which is also the belief of this essay. This political interest is here defined as freedom from discrimination and violence against women. In order to see if this interest is present in local policy it is transformed into variables concerning whether the local authority has an equality plan, supports a local shelter for abused women and by how much money it supports women's shelter.

Coordinator of public health has recently become a new profession in the field of Health Promotion. During the last few years the pedagogic perspective has been increasingly important for the coordinators as a way of adapting their work methods to the circumstances. The conditions for coordinators of public health differ between municipalities and thus their tasks and responsibilities may vary with the local structure. According to the literature there are several ways to conduct Health Promotion and it is in the hands of the coordinator to adjust the methods to fit local conditions. The purpose of the study was to examine what influences the coordinators of public health and how that affects their work methods.

Social work is a social phenomenon, existing in most societies, that has given rise to a multitude of special organizations and professions. For that reason social work is dealing with a complex identity. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how social workers and the scientific discourse interpret the concept of social work. In addition to that the study intends to show similarities and differencies. The research process containes two studies, one based on qualitative interviews with five social workers and the other consisting a surway of academic litterature.

As a part of Göteborg Energi?s work towards a smarter electric grid, the company has chosen to investigate the possibilities of automation in their middle voltage grid. In Europe, there are example cases where these technologies already are installed which many articles on the CIRED conference 2011 proved. Netcontrol Oy in Finland has, together with Tekla, created an automated SCADA system that Vattenfall in Finland today uses. The grid mainly consists of 10 kV open loop fed city grid and this automation is mainly designed for this type of grid.

The purpose of this essay was to examine municipal guidelines regarding the administration of the social assistance, collected from 18 municipalities in the Stockholm-area to achieve a greater understanding on how they were constructed in respect to the legislation and how the language mediated their contents. The legal aspects of the social assistance was studied through a jurisprudential method in which the legislative history, texts of laws and case laws were examined. The empirical aspect of this essay was studied through a hermeneutical method and analyzed through theories of social constructionism and legal pluralism. The results from the jurisprudential study were also used to understand how the municipal guidelines were constructed in relation to the law. The results of this essay corresponded well with previous studies in this field where considerable divergences in the approval of social assistance have been established.

Sara Lidman?s second novel Hjortronlandet (1955) unfolds in the north of Sweden in the early 20th century. It describes the progress of modernity and the conflicting interests of an old local culture and a new more ?civilised? one. The two cultures are constituted by different value systems and in the novel they are represented by two neighbour communities.

Since the emergence of social media websites as an established part of our society, the landscape ofcommunication has undergone dramatic changes. Especially in the field of journalism, the impact ofsocial media websites, such as Twitter, has been the subject of discussions about the actual partsocial media play in communication and news reporting. The general opinion has been that socialmedia has revolutionized the way we communicate and that a shift in power is taking place as themasses now engage in, and affect, our societies way of spreading information. This study is acritical discussion about whether Twitter in particular, and social media in general, has affected thejournalistic field in the extent that many claim it has. By comparing theories about traditionalmedia, such as television and newspapers, with recent studies about Twitter, we conclude that it isto early to establish the role of social media.

The purpose of this study was to examine how local producers in the food and confectionery segment in Västernorrland, Sweden, working to communicate that the product is locally produced through its packaging design. We have chosen to look at how they work with the right packaging design because it is such an important part of the product marketing. A further aim was to examine how consumers perceive the packaging design of the locally produced products and how they consider that the packaging design communicates the product as locally produced. We have also analyzed the graphical elements contained in the locally produced product packaging through a semiotic analysis.The theoretical framework is based on theories in brand communication and Visual Communication, specializing in packaging design?s visual elements.The method used in this study is a qualitative method.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the discourse on political exclusion in the official report Demokratiutredningen. It has been my ambition to relate the analysis of the report to a critical academic discourse on political exclusion and thereby make visible hidden norms and structures which functions to exclude certain individuals and groups from political participation.My paper point out that the report establishes a strong link between democracy and participation and that it, therefore, makes a strong case for a process of democratic inclusion. Though, in my study I suggest that that there is an unawareness of the importance of norms, hegemonic conceptions and structures and that inclusion, therefore, is unlikely to take place. Furthermore, I criticize the focus on deliberative democracy in the report. With insights offered by Mouffe in her argumentation on the necessity to acknowledge the dimension of antagonism present in all societies I underline that the focus on this democratic model is problematic.My conclusion is that the analysis presented in the report is insufficient if we want to create a democratic system characterized by equality..

This thesis explores the opinion of different participants in the music business regarding music being made available at the public libraries. The aim of the thesis is to answer the following questions; which are the most important issues concerning the distribution of music? How do the informants perceive the public libraries mission and activity in regard to make recorded music available? Which are the benefits/disadvantages with music being made available at public libraries? Seven qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from the following organisations; SKAP (The Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers), FST (Society of Swedish Composers), SAMI (Swedish Artists and Musicians Interest Organisation) SMF (The Swedish Society of Musicians), SOM (Swedish Independent Musicproducers), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and EMI Music Sweden. A study of literature and articles generated nine themes, which constitutes the frame of reference for the thesis. The result shows that several of the informants have not reflected upon the public library as an important actor when it comes to the distribution of music.

The purpose of this study was to examine how local producers in the food and confectionery segment in Västernorrland, Sweden, working to communicate that the product is locally produced through its packaging design. We have chosen to look at how they work with the right packaging design because it is such an important part of the product marketing. A further aim was to examine how consumers perceive the packaging design of the locally produced products and how they consider that the packaging design communicates the product as locally produced. We have also analyzed the graphical elements contained in the locally produced product packaging through a semiotic analysis.The theoretical framework is based on theories in brand communication and Visual Communication, specializing in packaging design?s visual elements.The method used in this study is a qualitative method.

This report considers how the design and planning of the city can influence and promote a sustainable development focused on the social dimension. My prior intention was to look in to how a landscape architect can work with social matters of sustainability such as integration, equality, safety and so on. Which are our most successful tools and capabilities? I started to work with the historical background in September 2008 and soon discovered the multitude of theories and definitions of sustainable development, international, national and local. In Sweden the local political level has been given a lot of responsibilities to achieve a more sustainable society.