On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

Addressing increasing global environmental problems requires greater resource efficiency, and one way of working towards this is through industrial symbiosis. Industrial symbiosis means that companies collaborate through sharing of resources for collective benefits. The documented benefits of working with industrial symbiosis indicate that there is potential for companies to operate commercially with facilitation of industrial symbiosis. An interesting company to study within this context is Econova. Econova operates within the recycling and gardening industry and has been identified as a possible catalyst for industrial symbiosis.

The development of quantitative, real-time PCR (qPCR) combined with the mapping of the canine genome opens new possibilities in veterinary medicine. This method provides a quick and accurate quantification of the expression of a specific gene at a given point in time and thereby also information of how the gene expression for a certain protein is influenced by various conditions and diseases. One possible area of application is identifying bio markers for cancer. Recently the protein serglycin (the core protein of an intracellular proteoglycan) was found to act as a selective marker for the disease acute myeloid leukemia in humans (Niemann et al, 2007). Serglycin is produced by most hematopoietic cells, although mast cells account for the largest amount of serglycin.

In recent years, the penetration of new players on the telecom market hasdrastically increased the work pace, affecting both design and production. Inthis report the technical and economical potential of a DC/DC converterplatform is investigated, in order to shorten the time of the design process.This is done in comparison with the present discrete type designs. PowerIntegrations offers a product, the DPA-Switch?, enabling this.By developing a wide DC/DC converter platform based on the DPA-Switch?,many advantages are gained. The component count is decreased by up to48 % and the yield increases by up to 2.9 % which in all yields a costreduction by up to 43 % or ?390 000 for 100 000 manufactured units.

The aim of this thesis is to examine whether law reforms in the detailed planning process can be an aspect that gets in conflict with the citizens rights to participate in the Swedish planning through dialogue, and how five chosen municipalities are working with citizen participation. To be able to answer the aim of the thesis a literature study and five semi-structured interviews was performed in purpose to get wide-ranging information from municipal officials working with detailed planning handling. Law changes that aims to make the detailed planning process more efficient has been implemented partly to satisfy the needs of dwellings since the detailed planning process among master builders seems to be slow and inefficient, which to the them means higher costs. The requirement on having a detailed planning program was taken away when the new planning law was adopted year 2011. The planning program was including a moment of citizen dialogue. The case studied municipalities have not been affected in this law change arguing that it?s still possible to bring a program if needed.

In 1930 a new library reform came into force, which in reality was the beginning of the modern Swedish library. The purpose of this reform was to take measures to promote efficiency, for example to increase library co-operation. The Government grants were at the same time raised considerably. However, as early as in 1930, but especially the following year, the depression hit Sweden. The Government reduced the grants until the first half of 1936.

Global warming is a huge issue that humans have contributed to through over-exploitation of natural resources and extensive usage of fossil fuels. Now more than ever, we need to embrace a recycle thinking and reuse our waste, for example through producing biogas from our food waste. The purpose of this report was therefore to identify the energy usage and emissions resulting from the biogas chain which spans from Solna Stad to Uppsala Vatten. Furthermore, potential efficiency improvements were to be identified and proposed. This report focused mainly on the first part of the biogas chain that includes the collection of the food waste and the reloading process.

Internal communication exists in all organizations and is ongoing. It is of great importanceto communicate effectively when deficiencies can have serious consequences. The tsunamithat swept over South East Asia's coast in 2004 is indicative of this. At that time the consequenceswere loss of efficiency and productivity of businesses, health care, police and themilitary. All because of the lack of information.Employees in an organization take many decisions that affect the entire organization.

Changes in the labour market combined with an increased media coverage of managers, have resulted in the rise of a new human due diligence industry. The use of background checks has lately become increasingly popular on the Swedish market and many companies use it as an evaluation tool when recruiting. This study investigates differences in the background screening procedure for recruitment to executive management positions and lower level positions. It also aims to answer why background checks are conducted, using a cultural and a functional perspective. The report takes an abductive approach and data has primarily been gathered through a survey directed to large Swedish companies.

This masters thesis is a study of official political documents in order to discuss privatisation and the Swedish public libraries. In the 1990s public libraries became placed on contractors, and that was said to be one form of privatisation. The main issue for this study concerns driving forces and obstacles for privatisation of public libraries. Another issue concerns advantages and risks. We will also discuss how the future of public libraries will be in this context.

The aim of this project was to describe and to evaluate five small sewage treatment plants in the municipality of Laholm, Sweden, in order to investigate the treatment efficiency and to evaluate if effluents comply with discharge permits. The treatment systems were designed to treat effluents from 90 to 500 population equivalents. A report on the design and the present state of each sewage treatment plant has been made. This was made based upon previous documentation on water quality and by new sampling campaign as there were only a few previous measurements. Data has been evaluated and remedial actions proposed for those treatment plants that don?t fulfill discharge permits.

The energy consumption in the sectors of residential and public buildings is 40 % of the total energy consumption in Sweden. The main part, 85 %, of the energy use in these sectors is for operation of the buildings. The rest is used in the building process. When energy-efficiency measures are taken the energy use during the operation time decreases and the fraction of energy consumption during the building time increases. This project is carried out in cooperation with JM AB and concerns the energy use during the building time of production of blocks of flats at the building site.The main part of the electricity that is used during the production of apartment buildings goes into the heating of portacabins and illumination of the building during the construction phase.

During the last decades the local business as well as the multinational organization hasexperienced prominent changes in the technical field. The requirements for reaching newmarkets and achieving higher efficiency in daily work have risen to a whole new level. Totake advantage of the possibilities of IT the user has to be aware of the company?s businessactivities, what shortcomings and chances of development exist today. This is what makes itinteresting to depict the current situation of the company?s business.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att hitta en innovativ definition av begreppet interna kunder samt föreslå en implementeringsstrategi för en av den svenska matvarugrossisten ICAs lagerenheter. Vi har nått våra slutsatser genom kreativa studiebesök, interaktiva intervjuer, en innovativ workshop och litteraturstudier. Vi har utgått från leanfilosofin och teorier om kulturer, förtroende och kommunikation i organisationer. Inom samtliga områden har vi stött på kopplingar till inre och yttre effektivitet. Under intervjuerna upptäckte vi att ICA står inför vissa utmaningar när det gäller de anställdas förtroende, kommunikation och individualistiska tankesätt.

AbstractCorporate cultures have since the 80's, when the phenomenon was associated with a company's economic success, been a frequent research object. Corporate culture is then often described as something that can create efficiency, success and loyal employees. Often discussed about strong corporate cultures are that members in the organization have accepted the same norms, values and goals. Research also mention unique corporate cultures, where no organization is alike, depending their different stories, leaders, backgrounds or geographical locations.?? This study aims, through observations and interviews on an ethnographic basis, to describe the corporate culture in Stena Bulk.