The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine what needs and expectations the patrons have on the local public library services for adult students. With increased knowledge of these matters the library will be able to support and improve the service for users. The focus is on adult students with immigrant background who study Swedish as second language in a municipal adult education school. The main questions are: How do adult students use the library at present? What do they consider to be most important when using the public library for their studies? How do these expectations correspond to their experience of the library services? Two focusgroups and one in-depth interview were carried out.

This is a feasibility study that examines various aspects of building a wind farm on Malmön in Norrköping. The feasibility study deals with interests of conflict, park design, electrical connections, production calculation, financial calculations and operating- and timetable.The report is divided into two distinct parts. First a theoretical part, which deals with conflicting interests, park design and electrical connections. Second a part with simulations dealing with production calculations, and financial calculations.Opposing interests are mapped so that problem areas can be found, and help put focus on the right places at a future environmental impact assessment (EIA). There are a number of areas where planners have to assess on an EIA, this thesis point on the most important areas.

The purpose of this study was to analyze and develop a workflow for assessing and representing the value of ecosystems to professionals involved in municipal planning. A thorough literature review was conducted and supplemented by interviews and observations. Frameworks for ecosystem service assessments were analyzed and combined with methods in urban planning in order to assess social and ecological conditions. A workflow was set up and methods were evaluated by applying them to a case study in the area Åstråket in Uppsala. Experience from the case study was compiled in order to improve the workflow.Complex assessments were identified and simplified for the method to be useful for practitioners.

On March 1, 2012, Google introduced its new privacy policy which is applicable to all Google services. This means that search history may be saved by Google indefinitely and may also be associated with the specific account during the first 18 months. We assume that few people read this policy and we have hypotheses that a deeper knowledge of the contents of the privacy policy affects how users perceive Google as a company and/or the usage of Google services. In this study, we have conducted surveys at the IT University of Gothenburg, to investigate how many participants that have read or possess some knowledge of the privacy policy. We have found that very few participants claim to have read the privacy policy.

The purpose of this essay was to inquire how workplace conflicts are managed at a number of public social services offices in south-western Skåne. This essay's main research questions were: What organizational factors determine how conflicts arise and are managed in a work environment? To what extent are such factors prevalent at the above-mentioned social services offices? Are certain conflicts typically prevalent in the public social services? If so, what are they? How does the workplace in question manage the conflicts that arise? The inquiry was conducted among the staff of three public social services offices, applying the vignette method. According to previous research, certain system conflicts are typically prevalent in public sector organizations, which adversely affect the work conditions of social workers at the organization's professional level. Two examples each of this conflict type and of interpersonal conflict were included in the inquiry.

During the last decade, there has been an increase in the use of technology-based self-services within the retail sector. The increase is particularly noticeable within the grocery market. The reason behind the increased use of these systems is partially due to the fact that companies within highly competitive retail markets continually look for ways of decreasing costs while upholding efficiency. The problem is that it is difficult to understand the true economical implications of investments relating to these machines. The purpose of this study is to investigate and contribute with new insights regarding the cost-structures of the stationary self-checkout systems and traditional cashier desks, within the retail grocery market.

Social enterprises make up one of the groups of participants that provide welfare services financed by public funding. The object of this study is to describe and analyze from a theoretical point of view which conditions, in what fields, by which division of responsibility and finally through what decisions these social enterprises are allocated a place in the market for social welfare services. The company that has been the object of study offers services in the field of social welfare and in employment. In the study a triangulation of qualitative methods has been used: studies of literature on the subject, recurrent interviews and observations and also reviews of documents. The results have been analyzed from theories on the space available on the market for social services, on social economy and on social capital in the form of strong, weak and bridging bonds.

The aim of this study is to understand and describe school staff´s view on the legal obligation to report child maltreatment. With this approach I will get a better understanding how child maltreatment can be caught up in the Swedish community. Previous research shows that school is one of the authorities who report most children to social services. Previous research indicates that cooperation between school and social services reduces the time of the investigations, and gives a better understanding of what is to be reported. The result shows that a functional cooperation between school staff´s as well as between school and social services is important for children to be caught up in the community.

Marlot Company Limited is a company in the sector household services. It is a new company where the owners, and also the clients, felt that the company was in need of a distinct platform where they could communicate with their current and prospective customers. The assignment was to create a platform consisting of a graphic profile and a Wordpress site for the company. The graphic profile's task was to distinctly profile the company in the market, and visualizing the conceptions that the company wants to be associated with. The purpose of the Wordpress site was to create a showcase for Marlot towards their customers, and thecompany itself could manage after completion.These two products have been created with the help of a pilot study which included an analysis in which the competitors in the market has been scanned, and reports of the household services sector has been studied.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

This paper concerns the question of how one can frame a political message. I investigate how a political frame is bound both to the line of argumentation connected with a certain discourse and to the audience closely related to that discourse.I have chosen to study a single case where the policy process was characterized by a framing contest. The case shows how negotiating the new Services Directive is affected by framing efforts made by the parties negotiating.My conclusions are that the question of a Services Directive lent itself to a definition in terms of "either/or"-arguments. Thus the Directive could be considered either a threat or a possibility. It was the very nature of the matter - the development of the internal market on services - that made possible a debate along the lines of a "left/right"-struggle and where a frame that drew from the European Social Model offered the better explanation thereby succeding in defining the new Directive as a threat.

The Swedish field of digital X-ray imaging has since several years relied heavily on distributed information systems and digital storage containers. To ensure accurate and safe radiological reporting, Swedish software-firm eCare AB delivers a system called Feedback?the first and only quality assurance IT support product of its kind. This thesis covers several aspects of the design and implementation of future versions of this software platform. The focus lies on distributed directory services and models for secure and robust data propagation in TCP/IP networks.

The purpose of this paper is to show how practicing teachers work to prevent racism. Based on four interviews with teachers at low-, middle- and high schools, where these schools differ in numbers of immigrants and geographical location. Conclusion: None of the four teachers feel that racism is a problem at their school; however, they are confident that some racism is present at their school. The teaching techniques are comparable in all four schools which targets the students? values, confidence, attitudes and behavior by work how students should treat one and other..

The aim of this study was to reach a deeper understanding of the process that occurs within the social services after receiving a notification according to Chapter 14, section 1, The Social Services Act. More specifically the focus of this study was to illustrate how social secretaries reason about children?s participation in the process, as well as to examine whether the legislative change, Chapter 11, section 1 a, The Social Services Act, has affected the process in any way. The study?s results reflect interviews with five social secretaries who are active in four different municipalities in southern Sweden.