The main purpose of this essay was to study whether niche parties that were represented in municipal councils in Sweden during the 2007-2010 term of office were politically relevant. Furthermore, factors that might facilitate political relevance for niche parties were studied. Political relevance was studied using two theoretical perspectives. The objective model of political relevance presents four categories of relevance based on the relations between political parties in a political assembly; governing parties, coalition parties, blackmail parties and isolated parties. The subjective model of political relevance relies on the party representatives? own judgments of the relevance of their parties.

In this study, I have examined the previous Social Democratic government?s communication with the voters, focusing on its promises during election campaigns, and the presentation of achieved results. The theories used are the mandate- and sanction theory; the first focuses on voters comparing manifestos to find the most agreeable, whilst the latter concentrates on voters evaluation the work of the previous government, to either discharge or support it. For the sanction theory to work, voters must have the necessary information to evaluate the government in progress. The question is; did the previous government provide the voters with such information?This has been done through scrutinizing the Social Democrats? election manifestos that was used between 1994 and 2006, to examine what the party promised to achieve in economics and the labor market.

This Master of Science thesis project handles issues around managing data from the digital tachographsystem. European legislation states that companies must download the data of the digital tachograph systemand store it for at least one year for control purposes. The system stores data on the vehicle unit located inthe driving compartment and on smart cards personal for each driver.Acquiring data from the previous analogue tachograph was done instantaneously since the data wasphysically printed to a circular paper chart when driving. To acquire data from the digital system one mustperform a download from the vehicle unit and later transfer it to some form of backup solution for longterm storage. Data must also be downloaded from the driver smart cards.Download of data from the vehicle unit is the most time consuming task and may take up to 30minutes pervehicle.

The aim of this thesis is to study a number of standards and theories, from the two research areas human-computer interaction and psychology, about how a graphical user interface (GUI) should be composed in order to facilitate interaction between humans and computers. Special emphasis is put on how the GUI should take into consideration the strengths and limitations of human cognition and perception. A study of three web catalogues shows how these theories appear when concretised. The following questions are answered in this thesis:What guidelines and styleguides can be found that specify the design of a user-friendly GUI?How do a few library catalogues on the web match a selection of these design principles?The guidelines are extracted from literature concerning human-computer interaction, psychology, automated library systems and web design.

In the last few years there has been an ongoing debate concerning the methods of assessing the quality of public libraries and their services. This study investigates the opinions and needs of the users at four different public libraries in Malm : the local libraries in Bellevueg rden, Limhamn, and Kirseberg, and the main library in central Malm . The purpose was to find out whether different user groups display different patterns in their library use and, in addition, to identify what library services they prefer. The data were collected through interviews with users and librarians, and by means of a user survey ccarried out at the four libraries. The results indicate that certain differences in the usage patterns do exist between the main library and the local libraries.

iProspect is a global digital marketing agency and work primarily with search marketing. They were the first search engine marketing agency in the world when the company started up 1996 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the first in Sweden to offer services in search marketing after establishing themselves on the Swedish market the following year. iProspect can be found in the södermalm office in south central Stockholm. They are a comprehensive agency within search and offer everything from search engine optimization and sponsored links to advertising on social media. They?re goal is to lead developments in search marketing and to keep ahead of competition.

This Degree project is a study about the Mortgage Cap, introduced in October of 2010, and its impact on the demand for rented apartments. The mortgage cap was introduced to decrease the households? loan-to-value ratio and thereby increase their economical resistance during times of financial instability.The past ten years Swedish households have continuously increased their average loan-to-value ratio. In an attempt prevent this negative development Finansinspektionen introduced a mortgage cap stating that banks should no longer grant mortgages corresponding to more than 85 percent of the property?s market value.In order to answer the main question two methods were used both a survey and two interviews.

This essay is part of a project between Södertörn University College and Stockholm Academic Forum. The focus of the project is gender equality in small- and medium sized companies. I have worked with a construction company called Activa . The majority of the employees at the company were male and I was interested in the consequences of gender construction in such an environment. I think that the basic condition for equality work is an understanding of gender and the male norm.

The project description is to draw an extension or annex to the existing Nationalmuseum building from 1866.The annex is designed to complement Nationalmusems activities and contain internal and public functions. Artentering the building must not be crossed by public visitors. Art and staff must be able to seamlessly move betweenthe extension and the main building. The new building includes a public study room for scholars working withthe collection of art on paper, workshops, conservation studios, art spaces and warehouses. Additionally, theannex is designed to host a large number of office spaces.With the renovation of Nationalmuseum they intend to open up the today built in south atrium.

The aim of this thesis is to better understand branding work in government agencies. What can systematic branding work result in, in a government agency, besides a strong brand in itself? Can it contribute to the democratic mission that government agencies have?Based on background information on government agencies, their mission in terms of communication, their particular characteristics in relation to the private sector; brands and how they are developed; as well as theories in organizational communication, and research on the possibilities and risks of branding work in the public sector, a qualitative case study on the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) was carried out.The case study consists of a study of PRV?s brand platform, their website as well as an interview with the person responsible for developing the platform. The information gathered during the case study indicates that PRV?s brand work seems to have resulted in a number of positive outcomes.

The use of coaching is fairly up to date in the business world although it?s relatively new.Despite this, there?s a lack of clarity about what coaching is and what it signifies. Our point ishowever not to define coaching. Based on the normative coaching literature, the purpose is,from a critical discourse analysis to explore the power relations that affect the coach andcoached in their relation to each other, so as to be able to criticize managerial coachingrelationship as presented in the literature. This will contribute to enabling for a more opendiscourse.The theoretical image of managerial coaching described by the literature as a democraticexercised leadership by a certain type of behavior and attitudes, will lead to improvedorganizational performance.

This Bachelor Thesis in the area of Computer Science and Work Science describes the process of design and development of an IT-tool between the municipality of Ron-neby and TietoEnator a development and consultancy firm, the Gothenburg office. The thesis focuses mainly on the cooperation between the consultant designer and the local municipal. Through cooperation, the organisation is incorporated into the tool and the tool is incorporated into the organisation. Concepts that are central in this thesis are design, cooperation and tailoring. A question raised is, if distance work and extensive cooperation might be a good way of working in the process of design and development, when the organisation is being incorporated into the tool. Advan-tages and disadvantages of this way of working are discussed. Our studies show that distance work is a good complement for personal meet-ings between designer and co-developer.

There are several typical ideas about the suburb. The suburb is often associated with criminality and other social problems such as segregation. The purpose of this essay is to study the picture of how the suburb is constructed in a media context. The method used to answer the purpose of this study is critical discourse analysis, based on the thoughts of Norman Fairclough. The central theoretical ideas for this study are representation, stereotypes and racialization.

The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

Litorapid Media AB is a printer and prepresscompany, located on Hisingen, Gothenburg. Litorapid is a relatively large company, and is therefore in great need of convenient contacts with becoming and present customers. Seeing that they work with the most rescent technique in the branch of printing, it is important that they market themselves in a modern way. The purpose with this project became, for that reason, to create a more contemporary home page for the company to catch new customers, as well as aninteractive presentation of the company to create a more personal contact with customers they alreay have. The home page was created in the programme Macromedia Dreamweaver 4, and its design is based on previouly distributed brochures.