Background: In 1999 the Swedish pension system was reformed with an aim to create a stable and high return on pension assets. First, Second, Third and Fourth general pension funds, hereby referred to as AP1-AP4, had an important part in the reform. AP1-AP4, also called the buffer funds, was assigned to secure long-term, big parts of the pension capital. The funds objective is by law, to manage the fund's assets in a manner that provides maximum benefit for the state pension. The funds will also invest pension assets with an overall low level of risk while achieving a sustainable high return.Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the First-Fourth AP-Funds is meeting its objectives regarding risk and return according to Swedish law.

Assessing the outcome of corporate responsibility is often argued to be complicated due to long-term effects and qualitative aspects. Epstein (2008, p.261) establishes that: ?Though many think that sustainability is too difficult to measure, companies have found that unless the impacts are measured, they are commonly ignored in the resource allocation process?. Corporate responsibility is often referred to as a business case, i.e., that social and environmental concern add value to the business (Heikkurinen, 2010; Porter & van der Linde, 1995). Hence, for corporate responsibility to be a business case a strategy, corporate structure and systems, programmes and actions linked to performance measures need to be in place to assess the outcome; environmental, social as well as financial.

Shareholder value has its origin in the American corporate governance system and has been the subject of great debate over the last few decades. The proponents claim that it creates economic efficiency while the critics argue that maximization of shareholder value jeopardizes the long term survival of companies. However, the debate in Sweden already seems to have forgotten the question of how embedded the ideology really is and what´s leading its way. This study show that shareholder value has developed and been established in Swedish companies between 1995 and 2005. The study has found evidence that suggests that the development can primarily be linked to board networks and international exposure.

This study examines university employees? perception of their employment situation and career opportunities. By tradition, fixed term contracts are used in the Swedish research community due to dependency on insecure funding. There is a current debate that questions this use of insecure employments. The employments are said to negatively affect the university?s societal role and international competitiveness.

Background and Problem definition: Atypical employment is something that has becomeincreasingly common in recent decades, these are defined as positions where no relationship is of thetraditional type in which the employee has a long term relationship with the employer and where hecarries out his work at the premises of the employer. These atypical employments can take variousforms, it can be fixed term contracts, project work or jobs in employment agencies and so on. Thestaffing sector in Sweden has grown rapidly since the 90s, and since international research shows thatthe three-way relationship arising from the use of staffing agencies may lead to challenges in differentparts of HRM, we have chosen to study this topic.Aim: The purpose of this paper is to describe and understand how HRM is handled in atypicalemployment relationships.Method: The epistemological starting point for this work is hermeneutics, as a result of this theresearch approach is qualitative and inspired by abduction. The authors have chosen to carry out thework as a case study of three primary cases, each one consisting of an employment agency, a clientorganization and an employee. The analysis is based on the hermeneutics principles of interpretationand concentration of meaning.Results: What emerged as central to how HRM is handled are the interdependencies that existbetween the business environment and the strategies of the firm, how they affect different parts ofHRM and how participation and liminality have an impact on the three-way relationship.Keywords: HRM, atypical employment, staffing agencies, three-way relationship and strategy..

This is a qualitative study of how 4 school teachers and 3 special educational teachers define the term ?pupil in need of special education?. They have each one been interviewed about this term, by the means of a semi-structured interview. Afterwards the collected information has been analyzed and seven major themes have been arranged out of them. From these themes it is possible to see that the term is hard to define, since the participants all believe that it should be decided by each individual case, if the pupil is in need of special education or not, and that the education in itself has to be relevant to the need, which means one cannot decide what special educational needs are, without a student who is in need of them.

The purpose of this study was to examine the routines of performance related pay systems in two Swedish municipal upper secondary schools. A second purpose was to examine what data was included for evaluation of a co-worker?s performance and how a principal collects data. The purpose was also to examine a principal and teachers´ view of performance related pay systems and if it was possible to note an agreement. Principals have been interviewed and teachers have answered a questionnaire to fulfil the purposes of this study.The study shows that the municipality had a good routine that included individual discussions with co-workers about their salary and had fixed municipal criteria.

This study is about how students 'performance in school is influenced by parents' educational background. The study has been performed by cooperation with two schools in Stockholm. One class in each school has participated and the students have amongst other questions answered regarding their grades in natural science subjects. To examine whether parents 'educational background affect students' performance, a quantitative survey in the form of poll has been conducted. Even a literature review was conducted in this area to get a clearer picture of how parents' educational background affects the performance of students.This study shows that students who have academic parents perform better than students who have not got academically educated parents.

Today, some kind of laboratory results is required for around 70% of the diagnostics and follow-ups for diseases. In many of the cases the time from sampling to a result is very critical. Therefore the discussion of how to improve this situation has begun. For many analyses serum has been the routine choice for a long time but now it is disputed. After blood collection in a serum tube it is essential to wait 30-60 minutes before centrifugation and analysis of the sample, a long time for someone in an acute state.

Swedish agriculture faces future challenges regarding food production and land use. Increased competition for agricultural land creates complex situations, where conflicts may arise when productive crop land is in demand not only for food production but also energy- and fodder production. On top of that there is an obvious conflict of goals between agricultural production and non-agricultural exploitation of agricultural land. In several emerging economic regions it is noticeable how agricultural land is being expropriated for development of urban settlement and infrastructure, carrying potentially significant long-term effects. During the last decade the exploitation of agricultural land in activities other than food production has increased in Sweden and is expected to continue in the same manor. Approximately 700 hectare of land in Sweden is diverted from food production, annually, and in 2013, the Uppsala Municipality showed the greatest change in land use of all municipalities (SCB, 2013).

This essay discusses the problems with the high rate of long-term sickness leave among women in Sweden. It is based on interviews with six women suffering from stress-related illness. The results show that these women hardly ever recieved an explicit diagnosis and therefore did not feel that their illness was acknowledged. In the abscense of measurable symptoms they were sometimes stigmatisized and accused of simulating their problems. From this position they tried to legitimize their situation by presenting themselves as respectable women.

This study will analyze and interpret the performance art piece The Last Strawcreated by the artist group High Heel Sisters. The aim is to search for potentialfeminist strategies in their deconstructive ways of incarnating gender and bodiesusing the notion of performativity and phenomenological theories.My study shows that the diversity of this art performance creates a complex platformwere discussions about gendered corporeality and spatial power relations are beingnegotiated..

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.

Research has shown positive correlations between global self-esteem and physical activity, as well as between global self-esteem and school performance. However, research is ambiguous and other variables have shown importance for global self-esteem. This study aims to investigate the correlations between global self-esteem and physical activities, school performance and social participations within high-school students in the northern part of Sweden. The study also investigates gender differences regarding correlations between the variables. The study was conducted using a questionnaire that included Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and self-rated physical activity, social participation and grades in Swedish, English and mathematics.

The purpose of this study is to create a method that can be used to produce decisionsupport data for the climate goals of a municipality. The method should be able to demonstrate the potential for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for measures aimed at the stationary energy system in the municipality. It will be used to make longterm projections of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in order to be able to demonstrate the ability to reach climate goals. The aim was also to test the method's applicability by using the municipality of Uppsala and the Uppsala climate protocol project in a case study. Uppsala climate protocol is a project consisting of participants from business, government and organizations that voluntarily want to commit to reducing their carbon footprint by reducing their energy use and thus work to achieve the municipality's overall climate goal. Public reporting of energy use and climate impact has been studied in order to examine the nature of indicators and accounting figures that are commonly used in the field and how long-term forecasts are formulated. In connection to this, the type and sources for the kind of data needed was also examined.