After a workshop in Kuopio held in June 2006, Interbull decided to go forward with the development of a system for beef international genetic evaluation and a three year project called Interbeef was launched in June 2007. The participating countries are so far limited to Europe and the only trait evaluated at present is adjusted weaning weight (weight at 200 days). The results from a first international genetic evaluation have been shared with the countries but are not yet official. The evaluation is based on data from purebred Charolais and Limousin. To achieve good estimates of proofs in an international context it is important that methods for data validation and model selection are implemented.

Participation as Pedagogy ? Imagined Race and the Exhibit of Swedish Peoples-Types.This essay will analyse and give a deeper picture of the ?The Exhibit of Swedish People-Types? by focusing on the pedagogical ideals that formed the exhibit as an participatory media. The exhibit was led by the famous race-biologist Herman Lundborg and toured Sweden in 1919 displaying the racial constitution of the Swedish population using material gathered by the public itself. The exhibit has been described as an important tool in popularising eugenics in Swedish society during the early 20th century with the ambition of gaining funds to create the first race-biological institute and to influence policy-making. Nevertheless there has not been a single study which has focused solely on the exhibit and how the pedagogical ideals that permeated it affected the relation between the public and the media itself nor the political implications of this relation.

This thesis compares political participation by the public through the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman (PO) and the German Petitions Committee of the Bundestag (PC). Through studies of literature and statistics I examine how citizens can participate through the institutions, how frequently they do and the likelihood of sparking a debate while participating.Using media theories as well as theories of participatory and representative democracy I study how citizens can use these institutions for purposes of control and proposition.Both institutions deal with complaints but the PC also deals with propositions for legislation, making the institution more versatile. The PO deals with more cases than the PC and has more far-reaching competences and areas of inspection, although neither institution has binding decisions. Thus the direct advantage for citizens using the institutions is the chance of reaching out to media and the public through freedom of information laws and the German online petition forum.The PC to a larger extent fits the representative model while the PO in some respects is more a legal than a political institution, being managed by lawyers instead of MPs. Neither institution meets the ideals of participatory politics although the German official petition is closer to it..

The last few years a lot of media air time has been devoted to training, sports, health and weightloss on a more personal level then before. The new media arena is beeing used at its´ maximumto broadcast wievs on how we should eat, look, exercise and live. This thesis is trying to makebetter understanding on what people in general think is important when it comes to physicaltraining and motivation with the aid of digital media and IT systems. The thesis describes aworkshop that was conducted within the frames of Participatory Design and the outcome of thatworkshop. The workshop was conducted with a group of lead users (in this case instructors at avery large fitness center in Umeå, Sweden) and the main question was ?How can IT be used toachive a positive effect on physical exercise if motivation is the focus??.

The following report is a constructive responsive evaluation of Svalövs communes unit for newly arrived refugees based on a qualitative user- and stakeholder model. The main purpose is to evaluate the units? quality from a user and stakeholder perspective. The main findings are that the users and stakeholders are satisfied with the quality of the units? services but request further social and structural participation.

The design of packages is something that product manufacturers put great effort on. The package is often the consumers' first interaction with a product and consumers judge the product based on the package. A common way to evaluate a package design is to let respondents look at a package and answer which attributes they think the product has. This paper wants to take this evaluation a step further, i.e. it examines if consumers experience differences in taste between two identical products that have different package designs.

This study examines how and why organizations evaluate training and development within the organizations. The study has a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews, with office and organization development managers. The purpose of the study is to contribute with knowledge about how three large Swedish organizations evaluates training and development programs for staff members. Another purpose is to describe why the organizations evaluate training and development programs and to research if there is a further need to develop the organization evaluation methods. Therefore the research questions are Why and how do organizations evaluate training programs? What further need is there to develop organizations evaluation methods?The conclusion of this study shows that evaluation of the training and development programs are not a high priority among the selected organizations.

For better understanding of how users interact with the video on demand service Netflix a study was conducted in 10 Swedish households. This study is based on the well-established heuristic evaluation method of Jacob Nielsen, which we modified slightly by letting the users to act as ?evaluation experts? and informing them about the heuristic rules of thumb during the evaluation process. The purpose of this study was to identify usability problems when people interact with Netflix? interface.

The aim of this study was to understand how evaluations are implemented and used in procured nursing homes for elderly. Our methodological approach consisted of a single-case study research. The case in this study was Växjö municipality. Three procured nursing homes for elderly were chosen in the municipality as examples of implementation and use of evaluation. The method for retrieving empirical data and the analyzing of it was based on triangulation.

In 2007 a project began in the Uppsala region, which aimed to help municipalities implement BBIC (Barns behov i centrum). BBIC is a system that helps social workers increase children?s participation in investigations relating to social work. This study follows up on BBIC?s implementation process in Enköping, a municipality in the Uppsala region.

I chose to study how the Swedish Air force carries out their work with setting goals for their work to improve flight safety and compare this with how the Swedish nuclear power plant Forsmark performs their work with improving nuclear safety. The study showed that both organisations have a lot to improve on in their ways of how to work. Especially when it comes to engaging the employees in the process, both in letting the employees be a part of coming up with areas to work on and in letting the employees evaluate which progress that has been made. It also showed that both organisations need to improve their methods for evaluating the work that has been done. This is especially important for the Air Force which evaluates on many levels and locations and did not have a set standard for how to conduct the evaluation.

The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate the performance of the content-based image retrieval system ImBrowse from a semantic point of view. Evaluation of retrieval performance is a problem in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). There are many different methods for measuring the performance of content-based image retrieval systems, but no common way for performing the evaluation. The main focus is on image retrieval regarding the extraction of the visual features in the image, from three semantic levels. The thesis tries to elucidate the semantic gap, which is the problem when the systems extraction of the visual features from the image and the user?s interpretation of that same information do not correspond.

The aim of this study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate an instrument for measuring the impact from chronic pain on daily life. Traditionally psychometric evaluation is done with parametric methods even if the items are ordinal data. In this study the instrument to be developed is solely based on ordinal data, and the psychometrically evaluation is done with both traditional methods (i.e. parametric statistics) as well as with non-parametric methods. These two different ways of psychometrically evaluation are then compared with each other.

The Swedish National Labour Market Administration wishes to acquire further knowledge about how the evaluation process of vocational rehabilitation at the employment service operates as a part of the quality assurance of this activity. The primary task for vocational rehabilitation at the employment service is to investigate the work capacity of unemployed people, to give them increased knowledge and better understanding of their own capacity concerning work or education. The aim of this study was to survey the evaluation process of vocational rehabilitation at the employment service in Sweden. Data were collected through telephone interviews with 15 occupational therapists employed at the employment service, who were working with vocational rehabilitation. The result shows that the investigation of work capacity can take place in different environments and that the space of time for an investigation can vary.

This essay examines the narrative aspect of interactive fiction. The study uses Janet H. Murrays analysis of the digital environment and the properties of it as procedural, participatory, spatial and encyclopedic. From this, her three characteristic pleasures in digital narratives - immersion, agency and transformation - are examined from the perspective of interactive fiction. The study also examines Nick Montforts analysis of interactive fiction as a potential narrative and a simulated world or environment.