BACKGROUND: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a slow progressive disease affecting the family caregivers by limiting their lifestyle. Subsequently the situation can be experienced as stressful for both the afflicted and the relatives. To easier understand the needs of the caregivers of family members suffering from COPD have, it is important to get an insight into their experience of every-day life, so that medical staff can help, support and promote their health according to their needs. AIM: To illustrate caregivers? experiences of living with a family member suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

The purpose of our study is to examine the case managers reasoning and descriptions of empowerment as a method in their social work from a comprehensively perspective including family members. To manage with this purpose we interviewed two case managers, two clients with mental disabilities and five family members. We have come to the conclusion that the case managers works more consist of advocacy than empowerment. Despite that we have found that the long term goal for the case mangers work is to give the clients tools for empowerment. Our results also show that the clients feel that they have gained and increased their ability to do things by themselves and to be a part of the community.

This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ?vårdnadsbidraget?. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model.From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate ? is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ?vårdnadsbidraget??The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics.

Glulam?s position at the Swedish market for building constructions has been established over the past decades. Factors affecting glulam demand are found both in global and national contexts as well in customer attitudes and knowledge of the material. Arguments for environmentally friendly and sustainable construction processes and energy-efficient designs are nowadays common, which is something that should motivate increased usage of wood as a renewable material. For the glulam industry to increase its sales, improve profitability and thereby gain market share in present competitive climate, reliable market information and updated market intelligence is required.

The aim of this study was to illuminate how social workers in social services work with the social phenomenon, homelessness in two municipalities. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with interviewees from a department of social services. Our theories that we used was resistant inequality, structural discrimination, exclusion, empowerment and representation. After compilation of our empirical our conclusions are that homelessness is a complex phenomenon. Social workers handles homelessness based on client?s needs and the work is individualized.

Our main aim with this study is to shed a light over the social workers opinions about what they believe will be the consequences of introducing Housing First in the city of Stockholm. We wanted to examine the social workers perceptions about how Housing First could change their client?s autonomy and justice. Therefor we accomplished five qualitative interviews with social workers. We analyzed our empirical material with the theoretical terms; justice, autonomy and intern role-conflict.

The paper aims to examine how the wives of men with dementia experience their lives and how they perceive support from the society. The paper also aims to highlight the family care consultants´ work and views on support for families of people with dementia.Three spouses of people with dementia and three family care consultants were interviewed and the results were analyzed using Antonovsky's (1991) three theoretical concepts; comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness that comes from his theory Sense of coherence.The results show that the three wives whose men suffered from dementia spend most of their time, effort and energy on their husbands. They do not have time to think about their own needs and what support they feel they could use for themselves. They do not think about themselves as caregivers, they are spouses.Family care consultants are well aware of the importance of meeting and see the relatives in their lives, and denounces the importance of a support designed individually. Family care consultants understand that the most important and the best support society can provide a family care giver is that their close ones are well taken care of and given good care..

This thesis has been performed at Scania CV AB Technical Centre in Södertälje and its aim hasbeen to study the causes and effects of deformations in the interface between the rear axlehousing ADA1100 and the central gear house R780 during operation. Design changes that wouldincrease the sealing capability of the studied interface are also suggested. Finite element (FE)and CAD software have been the primary tools in this study.Finite element (FE) simulations are used in the industry to predict and develop engineeringdesigns. The main motive for FE simulations has traditionally been to identify weak spots in thedesign, regarding high tensions and large deformations.The FE model is an aggregation of submodels and interface models that represents the rear axlehousing, suspension, central gear, central gear housing, wheels, bolts and weldings, and theirinteractions. The submodels have different material properties and they are connected withcontact interface models.Boundary conditions are defined on the bushings in front of the rear axle and on the air bellowsbehind the rear axle.

The intention of this study is to perform a content analysis based on a theoretical framework founded on multi-level governance, MLG. The thesis examines the formal changes within employment politics between 1999 and 2004 (Sweden´s action plan for employment) and 1998 and 2007 (the spring budget proposition). I will investigate how multi-level governance has effected the Swedish employment politics. Furthermore, the purpose of the thesis and the questions under consideration are: How have the formal structures within Swedish employment politics changed since Sweden?s admission to the European union, particularly during the periods 1997-2008 and 1999-2004? And: How do the changes in Sweden, together with the European union directive concerning employment, coincide in the so-called employment strategy?While performing the analysis I have focused on multi-level governance.

The aim of this thesis is to examine what factors that influences the management control in a family business operating in a sector in which they are under-represented. We have therefore conducted a case study of a family business in the finance sector, E. Öhman J: or Fondkommission AB (Öhman). The first conclusion is that the management control in Öhman is influenced by the environment and the increasing size of the company. We have found, however, that it is to an even larger extent affected by the fact that it is a family business even though the company is operating in a sector in which family businesses are not the norm.

The way we interact with computers will soon change dramatically. The input interfaces are becoming more and more intuitive and one of the latest technologies is a touch screen interface capable of dealing with multiple inputs simultaneously. The tools we use to communicate with the computer - such as the mouse and the keyboard, will slowly disappear and be replaced with tools more comfortable and more natural for the human being to use. The purpose of this project was to create a basic framework for future projects dealing with this interface, as well as creating some example programs. This report describes my work and my experiences with this new interface..

Introduction: Nowadays, it is a considerable fact that parents stay with their hospitalized child, however the role played by parents may not always be obvious. For many parents, this is a difficult experience, which may cause stress among parents who want to be supportive for their child. Parents and children have a close bond and influence each other emotionally; therefore it is of great importance that parent?s experiences of hospitalization should be noted. The pediatric nurse may apply this experience to give the best possible care for the child and the family.

The purpose with this study is to find out the experience of growing up in a family where the biological parents, has taken the assignment as family child caregiver?s. We have taken the help from the following question formulations to immerse ourselves in the subject. How do the biological children experience their relationship to their parents? How do the biological children experience their relationship to the children who are placed in their home? How do the biological children experience their participation in the family home? How do the biological children experience the need for support from outside the family? We have used a qualitative research method and interviewed six respondents with help from a semi-structured interview guide to get the respondents unique experiences told.

The municipality of Sandviken is in a state of strong growth. This affects the need for more hotel rooms in Sandviken, in a way that it?s profitable to invest in a new hotel. Sandvikens largest company, the steal industry Sandvik AB, grows just like Sandviken, and have great influence on the need of more hotel rooms. Today there are three hotels placed in Sandviken, and these hotels aren?t enough when the pressure of hotel guests is at its top.The purpose with the project was to analyse the criteria?s that are important for localization of a new hotel in the Sandviken, and to clarify what kind of hotel Sandviken is in need of.

The EU guarantees the free movement of persons. The citizens of the EU Member States have the right to move freely without barriers within the EU borders and this result in an integration of the peoples in Europe. The integration result in several international family relationships. It is not unusual in the present situation that families have international relations. For example, spouses in a married couple may have different nationality.