This master thesis is based on a general issue of quality in social services. I have chosen to illustrate through an empirical case, namely the position social responsibility coordinator and shortened SAS.This position is fairly new to the Swedish social services and has the overall mandate to monitor, develop and ensure quality.To study this, I have developed two analytic schemes. One is based on the concept of quality value components, the second is based on the concept of quality character components. These analytical schemes are used as the presented material. When I study mycase, I have used two methods, documents and questionnaires.In this study I will try to describe how new solutions to improve the quality of social services can conform and develop.

This study is based on my work as a teacher of Swedish language and literature to upper secondary school students, and my interest in developing the teaching of literature by using both new criticism theories and theories of literary perception focusing on reader response. The purpose of the study is to examine the learning process in trying to develop literary competence and to find out how to describe the competence shown by the students. My starting-point is a discussion about literary competence and the theory and model of literary competence by Örjan Torell. In examining literary competence, by how students use their constitutional competence as well as performance and literary transfer competences, Torell´s model shows the possibility and the need for both knowledge of literature and personal reception by focusing on the dialogue between author and reader.The method is qualitative and the empirics are material collected in one senior high school class in the Social Science programme during their second and third year. The material contains written reading logs, written answers to tasks and transcribed recordings of discussions of literature.The analysis shows a variety among the literary competence shown and developed by the students and points to the complexity of understanding the concept of literary competence.

Value-at-Risk (VaR) is among financial institutions a commonly used tool for measuring market risk. Several methods to calculate VaR exists and different implementations often results in different VaR forecasts. An interesting implementation is historical simulation, and the purpose of this thesis is to examine whether historical simulation with dynamic volatility updating is useful as a model to calculate VaR and how this differs in regard to type of asset or instrument. To carry out the investigation six different models are implemented, which then are tested for statistical accuracy through Christoffersens test. We find that incorporation of volatility updating into the historical simulation method in many cases improves the model.

Developed model for easier animal welfare assessment- with examples from dairy cows in loose housingAnimals in captivity are completely dependent on human care. If captive animals are prevented from exhibiting their natural behavior, they may suffer. Animal welfare inspectors, who insure that the animal welfare legislation is followed, use a checklist to assess the situation in the husbandry. This checklist contains only two levels of assessment, which may result in a lack of detail in the assessment of the husbandry. The objective of this report was to develop a more detailed model that provides an overview of the situation in husbandry.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

Making accurate predictions of private consumption expenditures is a difficult task. This thesis examines if consumer confidence can be used to forecast consumption. Using regression analysis, the link between consumer confidence and private consumption expenditures is analyzed for Sweden between the years 1994 and 2005. Two different models are estimated. In the first model consumption is regressed only on consumer confidence, while model two is extended to contain more variables.

During the past few years a vast amount of research has been done to increase the understanding of the complex ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. Modelling and simulations are important tools to increase knowledge of the system. A suitable model must be simple to use and the parameters and variables needed in the model must be easy to access.In this paper a dynamical mass-balance model, CoastMab, which is validated for smaller coastal areas, has been used to predict concentrations and transports of phosphorus in three large coastal areas - the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Gdansk and the Gulf of Riga. CoastMab uses ordinary differential equations to regulate inflow, outflow and internal flows. To reflect seasonal variations in temperature and different types of flows the model has a temporal resolution of a month.

This paper seeks to investigate whether there is a positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality among Swedish companies. In this study, accounting quality is defined as the degree by which a company's earnings are subject to earnings management. To detect earnings management accrual-based modified Jones model is applied to companies listed on the Large-, Mid- and Small-Cap lists on the Stockholm stock exchange during 2011. We find a statistically significant positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality. Thus, in line with prior research, our results suggest that managers, interested in maximizing their bonus, will select income increasing accruals to manage earnings upwards.

This study is based on my work as a teacher of Swedish language and literature to upper secondary school students, and my interest in developing the teaching of literature by using both new criticism theories and theories of literary perception focusing on reader response. The purpose of the study is to examine the learning process in trying to develop literary competence and to find out how to describe the competence shown by the students. My starting-point is a discussion about literary competence and the theory and model of literary competence by Örjan Torell. In examining literary competence, by how students use their constitutional competence as well as performance and literary transfer competences, Torell´s model shows the possibility and the need for both knowledge of literature and personal reception by focusing on the dialogue between author and reader.The method is qualitative and the empirics are material collected in one senior high school class in the Social Science programme during their second and third year. The material contains written reading logs, written answers to tasks and transcribed recordings of discussions of literature.The analysis shows a variety among the literary competence shown and developed by the students and points to the complexity of understanding the concept of literary competence.

Evaluation of sustainable work within real-estate companies is a relativelynew way of working and the number of companies starting towork with this routine increases every day. Chalmersfastigheter is areal-estate company providing faculties for universities. The company ismainly focusing on decision-making and outsourcing.The aim of this essay is to evaluate decision-making processes andensuring that the right decision is made, with other words, evaluatingthe decision and not the result from the decision. By identifying whatsustainability means for Chalmersfastigheter and in which processesdecisions are made, an evaluation is easily made to see if every decisionis based on the three aspects of sustainability; ecology, economy andsocial. The result from this evaluation will highlight how Chalmersfastigheter prioritize in decisions concerning sustainabledevelopment.This study is based on the ISO 14001 standard and the definition ofsustainable development presented in the Brundtland report.Akademiska Hus is used as an example to present how another companyin the same business has operationalized sustainability.

Abstract Title: Total Cost of Ownership ? Revealing the true cost of owning and operating equipment. Authors: Anna Bladh Anna Ström Tutors: Michaela Boye, Parts and Service, PTD, Alfa Laval Göran Berg, Parts and Service, PTD, Alfa LavalCharlotta Johnsson, Department of Automatic Control, LTH, Lund UniversityBertil I. Nilsson, Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, LTH, Lund UniversityCarl-Henric Nilsson, Department of Business Administration, Lund University Core issue: ?Which costs should be included in a general Total Cost of Ownership model regarding centrifuges, and what input variables are needed in order to calculate those costs in a user-friendly way and with a maintained level of accuracy?? Purpose: The theoretical purpose of the thesis is to identify the cost items that have the greatest impact on a TCO calculation for a centrifuge.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine what expectations young adults have of the public library andthereby determine the relevance of the library guidelines, Påbarns och ungdomars villkor (2003), for young adults. The empirical data is gathered through focus group interviews consisting of 18 participants between the ages of 16 and 17. The conceptual framework for this study is based on Lee´s motivation model for customers in the public library (2007). The model focuses on three conditions for motivation: expectation, instrumentality and valence.The results reveal that young adults in this study have low expectations of the public library. They express little need for public library services because they see the possibility of finding the same things that the library offers through other alternatives, such as the Internet.

Personal archives are a largely neglected subject in archival theory. Among the consequences of this is the absenceof any general established or formalized practices when it comes to arrangement and description. Thisstudy opposes the notion that an archival institution without formal systems of arrangement and description doesnot order and describe archives in accordance with a general conceptual framework of a correct order. Supportingitself on the anthropological theory of Mary Douglas on dirt and cleanliness, it studies the implicit notions oforder that can be found in the archival descriptions of the personal archives kept by the Swedish national archives.Several patterns where revealed by the study: among them the primacy of quantity stood out. The vaguesystem of categories based on Martin Grass description model appears only to be employed loyally where quantitiesof the particular categories are such that they constitute complete volumes, which seem to be the cardinaljustifier of categorical division within the archive.

This thesis studies the negative impact that control signal saturation may have on a controlled system. Different methods that are used to compensate for this problem are also studied and evaluated. Both sensitivity to disturbances and the effect the method has on the systems'ability to follow a reference signal will be examined. Stability will be discussed, but no conclusions whether the systems are stabilized or not can be drawn. Control signal saturation will lead to a slower behavior in general.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the outreach services for children and youths in a specific area, in this case Västra Götalandsregionen. In particular this thesis will examine the development in the outreach services for children and youths from 1990-2010. Our thesis will also examine if the financial crises affected the outreach services for children and youths, and how control documents influence the work of the librarians. This study is based on interviews, document and literature studies. For the analyses we used Torgil Persson?s theoretical model.