Public participation in urban planning is meant to increase democracy in the planning process. Even though all citizens have the option to participate in urban planning debates, few seize their chance to partake. This thesis describes a study on how user needs are met and prioritized in design processes concerning urban planning. The aim was to determine whether user-centered design (UCD) methods could be used as an avenue for public participation in urban planning and ultimately invite more citizens into the planning process.The thesis details a design process where a team worked to develop Farsta, a suburb of Stockholm. The design problem was the question of how Farsta could become an attractive business location.

Earlier studies shows that democracy within the preschool is an important and on-going work, but could implicate certain consequences. For example that goals regarding democracy and influence in the preschool, rarely is done in practice but instead remains just words on a paper. It could also mean that the pedagogues lack education and knowledge within the area, but also how they react to the influence of children. Preschool is expected to be a place for all children, no matter what luggage the child is carrying. The luggage is filled with the life experience, the personality and in this case the needs that the child has. The needs could be anything from nearness to physical and psychological disorders that requires more pedagogical attention.

Cannibalism can have major influence on fish population dynamics. A prerequisite for cannibalism is that the cannibal and the potential victim meet, and besides density effects, the encounter rate between cannibals and their victims is therefore also largely dependent on habitat use and habitat heterogeneity. In this study I quantified and compared the potential for cannibalism in stream-dwelling European grayling populations in three rivers in Jämtland by means of habitat classifications. I also analyzed population dynamic consequences of varying the potential for cannibalism in terms of intensity, using a physiological structured population model. Findings based on habitat characteristics were that the potential for cannibalism is in general not favourable in these types of streams.

The aim of this essay is to examine which help a group of women with eating disorders had from thier treatment in daycare in 2004. The aim is to examine how the women have experienced this treatment and how they live today. The central questions are: what was their life situation like before the treatment, what was their experience of the treatment, how could the treatment have been better and how are their lives today? The method is based on qualitative interviews with seven women who were all in the same treatment for eight weeks at Capio AnorexiCenter in Malmö. The women have also redone tests that were done right before and right after the treatment.

Women today feel that their urban surroundings are unsafe, and because of that they use different strategies to reduce the risk of being exposed to criminal acts towards them. The focus of this study is to develop an understanding of the insecure feeling that women feel and what that feeling might originate from. By using previous research and theories we have been able to incorporate a gender perspective on the study this because the gender role is central to understand women?s feelings of insecurity. The purpose of the study was to develop a deeper understanding of women?s sense of safety and insecurity.The central questions of the study are1.

In view of the difficulty of recruiting staff to care profession and in terms of the increasing need to find ways of ensuring a good language level in the profession, have an interest in language tests been revealed. The purpose of this paper is therefore to highlight the use of language tests for admission to the care courses for adults in Värmland. What provided This is a survey of the prevalence and an examination of the validity of the test. The issue that this study assumed is: How is language test in connection with admission to the certified health and social care courses for adults in Värmland? How well correlates intent of the use of the language test with the test's validity and reliability?The methods used to seek answers to these questions has been a combination of questionnaires and experiments.

The advancements in digital technology and its availability contribute to the transfer of companycentricproduct development and value creation to networks or communities. It also changes the basisfor creation of customer relationships as described in previous research on Customer relationshipmanagement (CRM). The purpose of this case study was to gain an understanding of how companieslike our case study object Memoto who developed a physical product which gets added-value fromdigital product-related services looks upon product-centered communities as a way of buildingcustomer relationships. How Memoto looks upon incentives for participation in product-centeredcommunities was also examined.Our research indicated that firms in the start-up phase (which Memoto was when this study wasconducted) initially want to have more control over the process of innovation and hence have directcontact with end-customers. The reason for this is because they see a need to define the basis forfurther innovation work.

Companies that invest in e-learning have different expectations regarding the outcome of the investment. According to literature and articles it is common that companies see reduction of costs as the primary benefit with e-learning. Therefore we ask ourselves the question if companies have attained the expected benefit of the investment in e-learning and to what extent cost reduction have been a determining factor in the investments? The purpose of the thesis is to examine if companies that invest in e-learning have attained the expected benefits. We also want to examine what the reason for investing in e-learning is and if cost reduction is the primary reason for investing.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and evaluate the usability of two Swedish systems, Sofie and Carlotta, which are used to organize and present data regarding museum objects on the web. This thesis also presents how objects are described and made accessible to the public in the two systems. To evaluate the usability, a heuristic method combined with Systematic Usability Evaluation has been used. The description and accessibility of object representations in the systems are evaluated using indexing and classification theories from the field of Library and Information Science. Additional theoretical background that has been used is how users search and browse information systems.

This examination work is performed at the institution of industrial economy and production at Jonkoping technical university, for JELD-WEN Door Solutions plant in Forserum.Today the focus in the company is on to reduce their inventories binding of capitals as well as inventory of products and that includes to get a good control of the supply and handling of material which is of great importance.JELD-WEN Door Solutions is one of the worlds leading producers of windows and doors and the head-office is located in Oregon, USA.A great number of wooden doors are manufactured by the company in varying of constructions, classifications and performance.The production of the plant in Forserum has a project- and customer focus manufacturing where only internal doors are produced. The overall market they are concentrated on is to different institution such as schools, hospitals etc.The purpose of this work is to investigate possibilities to improvement of material- and production control at JELD-WEN. The report will handle the master production schedule to and from the production divisions within manufacturing industry. Focus will be on the way for information- and material flows from arrival, transport within the company and further on to customers.Further a map of the flow was performed which gave a clearer picture of the connection between the flow of information- and material for the manufacturing process. On the basis of the mapping of the flow, the group discovered that the flow of material had some improvement potential.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to do a benchmarking study of the marketing activities at the public library of Valdemarsvik. The purpose is also to describe and get a deeper understanding of benchmarking as a method for improving library activity. Four major problem areas are addressed: How can one use benchmarking as a tool to achieve change? How can one learn with benchmarking? What similarities and differences are there between benchmarking and other similar methods for competence development? Is benchmarking better than other similar methods for competence development? The empirical approach was qualitative and the method chosen was action research.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

The object of this thesis is to direct attention onto female inmates who is a disregarded user group within the discipline of library and information sciences. This study has been performed on location at the Hinseberg correctional institution where nine female criminal offenders constitute the empirical foundation of our inquiry. The question proposed for solution is as follows: Is there a correlation between socio-cultural prerequisites and the reading habits of the female inmates - and if so how can it be described? Among the conclusions that we have drawn from our study is that the socio-cultural environment has an influence on the well-being of the inmates which in its turn has an impact on their reading. However, the effects on their mental state vary and consequently so does also their reading.

Today multi-touch technology is the basis for many new techniques designed to improve interactions with computers and mobile devices. It seems that multi-touch screen interface makes the user handling very natural in the sense that there is no need for a manual in how to interact with the object on the screen. The aim with this paper is to establish a fundamental set of design principles intended specifically for large multi-touch interfaces. To reach this goal we have implemented a couple of sub-goals beforehand: It was essential that we acquired a good understanding of the current state of the multi-touch interface and the different implementations that exist today. To make this possible we constructed a multi-touch display, "Rosie". Knowing how the hardware is produced today will help us understand the limitations and also the possibilities of the design implementations today and in the future. We also needed to devise a sound interaction design process that conveys the modern designers work.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.