The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The purpose of this essay is to examine Swedish HR-managers who have either received, or been nominated for, the award ?HR-manager of the Year?. We investigate the managers? personalities, how they think about their own role and HR?s function in the organization, all in an environment that can be characterized by some skepticism towards HR. We find the HR-managers to be ?winners?; strong individuals that are confident, communicative, and driven.

The aim of my study is to answer the question whether there is a potential for services by working horses in the Swedish municipalities. The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Swedish Farmers Union (LRF) has started a cooperation called Climate School (Klimatskolan), with the purpose to increase knowledge in environmental and climate related issues in context of agriculture. This Master thesis is in the framework of the Climate School.Global warming is a problem that gets much attention today. Global warming and climate change are two subjects that are very much in focus on the political agenda. The municipalities of Sweden have a big responsibility concerning environmental work and to develop their own environmental thinking.

The current paper compares the relations between different measures of activity and some common neuropsychological tests. One-hundred and fifty five healthy elderly, aged 55 - 85, living in Sweden were included. Gender-specific patterns were found for both activities and correlations between activities and cognitive measures. The main findings suggest that activities are associated with cognitive speed in men, whereas, for women, active and passive activities correlate, positively and negatively accordingly, with education. In comparison, complex models of activity outperform simpler ones and theory-driven measures just barely outperform intuitive models..

In this Bachelor Thesis (20 p.), we present the history and development of "Intelligent Houses", and most important- explore some of the future possibilities in this area. The project has been carried out through an interdisciplinary cooperation between three different educations at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. By conducting a dialogue with various actors with different professions, we have been trying to identify needs within the concept of "Intelligent Houses", were the end user is not only the tenant or homeowner. Through Participatory Design methods, such as a Future Workshop, we have brought the users together to discuss their own and each others needs and hindrances in their respective work practice, and how intelligent house technology could improve their work conditions. We have also been testing a highly sophisticated CO/CO2/Moisture/Temperature/Enthalpy multi-sensor & controller, originally developed for regulating indoor climate systems.

This report is focusing on problems with introducing standard enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) in businesses. A study has been carried out on a service and support department at a Swedish heat metering company, SVM North Node. The study aims to help the company become a better customer in choice and customization of a new ERP system. We make a description of the department studied and the work carried out there, on the basis of learning, knowledge and cooperation. As a final point we present some ideas on how computer systems could support their work, hoping that this will result in them making adequate demands on a new ERP system.

At the moment, democracy enhancing projects can be seen everywhere on the municipal level. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the city of Lund takes on this challenge, why they have chosen to carry out citizen councils and if these are a good way to intensify democracy and open communication channels between citizens, the administration and the elected officials.The theoretical framework consists of seven arguments for gaining citizen influence on policy, and as a counterweight three critical arguments that opponents of participatory democracy often use are added.After a survey over both the Swedish national trends in municipal renewal and the last years work in Lund, the analysis goes on showing that most of the arguments point to the disadvantage of the citizen councils. Even though legitimacy possibly is enhanced by the project, there are probably better ways to open up for more communication and intensify democracy in the local community..

During half a century the society has been changed from an industrial to knowledge-driven society. Industry companies have standardized requirements and companies that works with development in production has unique qualifications. The public employment office was created during a time that each tailored to then general requirements were dominating and the adaptation average appropriate worker and appropriate work where general. When the monopoly was stopped, crew companies begun to settle down on the market that flexibly adapt themselves to carried out now specialized needs that require sophisticated adaptation average work and job seekers. Companies lose the confidence for the public employment office and politicians threaten the organization with big closure.

In my paper I adress the question of what happens in the relationship between the beholder, the artwork and the artist when they meet in the era of Web 2.0. The new smartphone based medium that I write about is Instagram. The artist i write about is the Swedish illustrator Jesper Waldersten. My purpose with this paper was to explore how the the beholder, pictures and artist relate to one another i relation to Instagram and how the interface of the smartphone and the app affect the beholder in these relationships. I also seek out to understand the difference between how Instagrams interface affect the beholder in comparison to the interface of the artists web page and his book.

China is one of the fastest growing markets of today and attracts billions of dollars in foreign direct investments. Swedish companies have not been late to follow and operate on the Chinese market driven by opportunities in sales, production, and sourcing. However, there has been limited research made on how and why Swedish companies extend their sourcing efforts in China. By combining research within the internationalization of export activities, concepts from global sourcing, and gathered empirical data from leading Swedish companies operating in China, the thesis develops a framework for analyzing the internationalization process of sourcing in China..

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

AbstractParticiapation from the citizens in a democratic society is one of the ground pilars for the function of the democratic society. The goal for the Swedish contemporary democracy is to complement the representative democracy with different kinds of participatory activities for the citizens. But is it working? The purpose of this essay is to exame the problems that might occur when the citizens participate in a wider extent than just voting. The focus is problems connected to the democratic value political equality.

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the social and structural dynamics of an organization working with questions regarding development. The organization in question is Vi-agroforestry, a Swedish based NGO that works around the lake Victoria basin and the focus will be on their office in Rwanda. I have used a qualitative approach and conducted participatory observation as well as semi-structured interviews to gather data. I have emanated from the individuals in the organization by using a theory of microsociological organisationperspecive to understand how the employees create and is created by the existing social structures. (Blomberg, 2003) Even though the office in Rwanda only is a relatively small part of Vi-agroforestry?s operations it is still highly individual and independent from the rest of the organization.

Projektets syfte var att undersöka om en handdator kan stödja distriktssköterskans arbete. I rapporten beskrivs hur vi tillsammans med distriktssköterskor har iakttagit i vilka situationer handdatorn kan vara ett hjälpmedel. Om patientjournalen är tillgänglig via handdatorn vid hembesök skulle det styrka de av oss utvalda nyckelorden som representerar distriktssköterskans yrkeskunnande; "seende", lyhördhet, kommunikation, flexibilitet, prioritering, beslutsfattande, dokumentation, framförhållning samt utveckla ett minne och självständighet. I rapporten skriver vi också om hur distriktssköterskorna tillsammans med oss har påverkat utvecklingen av det grafiska gränssnittet i designprocessen. Vi visar med mock-upbilder hur denna process har framskridit och vi pekar på hur viktig användarmedverkan är.

This essay aims to investigate a rare method of marking up timber before hewing it. The method for marking up timber is by eyesight, where visual judgment and the use of a broad axe are the tools employed. The broad axe is driven through the bark and exposes the inner bark in a straight line. The method is described by a craftsperson dating back to the 1930s. There is a lack of information regarding the method.