The following study is a discourse analysis of the concept of critical thinking within pre-school teacher education. It considers the following questions: how does the concept of critical thinking appear in policy documents, central to the pre-school teacher education, and which possible conceptions of critical thinking are conveyed by students and teachers active within the education. Additionally, the study seeks to discuss, as well as suggest a possible relation, between the findings of those two questions. In reviewing the material (consisting of five semi-structured interviews with students and teachers, and of a selection of policy documents central to the education), I argue the existence of a sort of project within the education, which presents critical thinking as a higher value. At the same time, I argue that the concept is not defined or concretized. This project, however, as I suggest while drawing upon Foucault?s ideas of discourse and government, involves a rather high degree of control.

Bakgrund Typ 2-diabetes ?r en kronisk sjukdom d?r kroppen har insulinresistens eller minskad insulinproduktion som utvecklas l?ngsamt och kr?ver sammanfattande egenv?rdsinsatser. Sjuksk?terskan har en central roll i att st?dja patienter att utveckla kunskap, motivation och f?rm?ga till egenv?rd. Syfte Att belysa sjuksk?terskans arbete med att fr?mja egenv?rd hos vuxna personer med typ-2 diabetes.

This thesis includes a mechanical engineering design work performed incollaboration between ÅF and Halmstad University. The work is done by FredyOlsson?s methods of Principle- and Primary Construction and David Ullman?stheories of Design for Assembly.The group was commissioned by ÅF to produce a concept to narrow down theassembly time of today?s luggage doors by reducing the numbers of adjustmentoptions. They also wanted it to be easier to mount the assembly by making itpossible to adjust the door in a closed position. Today luggage door takes, with its10 adjustment possibilities, around 4 hours each to assemble and ÅF wanted anassembly time around 10 minutes per door.Initially a preliminary study was made where the group began reviewing today'sconstruction and mounting of rails and doors on buses.

Background: Research on presenteeism has been performed mainly during the last 15 years, where several consequences on health such as cardiovascular disease and mortality have been identified. Studies have shown a relation between sickness absenteeism and presenteeism, where presenteeism could lead to long-term sickness absence. Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate work-related and personal causes of sickness presenteeism. The study also aimed to identify the overall prevalence of sickness presence in Scandinavia, including potential occupational sectors with higher prevalence. Method: The study was literature based and consisted of 15 peer-reviewed scientific articles that were found by a systematic search in PubMed and Scopus.

The purpose of this study is to find out which attitudes, norms and values exists about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families in preschools. Based on five qualitative interviews with teachers that work at a LGBT-certified preschool and one that is active in their work with norm critical pedagogy. To be able to fulfil my purpose of this study I concentrated on why these teachers believed that it was of importance to counter society?s heteronormativity, to prevent discrimination and mistreatments towards children and their LGBT parents in preschool. I wanted to find out what the teachers thoughts were on the concept of what a family is and how the diversity of families is shown in the preschools material and pedagogy.When I analysed the results of my qualitative interviews I used queer theories that include heteronormativity and norm critical pedagogy.

The purpose of this study was to examine what previous research says about children?s experiences living in a low-income family. Its aim was to found out what children themselves say about their life living in a low-income family and what consequences, practical and emotional, low-income environment has on children. More specifically our aim was to find out how children themselves experienced their situation compared with their peer?s economical situation.

Barns exponering för partnervåld har under de senaste åren blivit identifierat som ett samhällsproblem och tack vore den ständigt ökande forskningen kring ämnet, har kartläggningen av fenomenet varit möjlig. Syftet med föreliggande systematiska litteraturstudie var bland annat att baserat på den tidigare forskningen kring de partnervåldexponerade barnen belysa den psykologiska situation dessa barn kan befinna sig i samt ge en översikt av det aktuella kunskapsläget gällande exponeringens konsekvenser på barn. Det empiriska materialet utgjordes av peer review artiklar publicerade mellan 2000 och 2009. Resultatet tyder bland annat på att barnen uppvisar internaliserings- och/eller externaliseringsbeteenden som konsekvens av IPV exponeringen. Barnens kön, tidpunkten för exponeringen samt barnens sociala situation är de faktorer som har funnits vara betydelsefulla för exponeringens konsekvenser.

An increased awareness about the global warming has created a demand for more information on how the climate is affected by different activities.This master thesis was initiated by Tricorona, a Swedish company that offers its customers analysis and calculation of their climate impact. Tricorona also supplies climate neutralisation with CERs, in accordance with the Kyoto protocol and controlled by the UN. This work demands updated emission factors for greenhouse gases. An emission factor gives information about the greenhouse gasintensity of a service or a product [kg CO2-eq./ functional unit].The purpose of this thesis is to examine how electricity, district heating, hotels, taxis, food and materials affect the climate and how emission factors for these areas can be calculated.This was done by reviewing and comparing different studies and by interviewing experts. The information was evaluated and recommendations on calculations and emission factors were made.The consumption of energy is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions for district heating, electricity, hotels, taxis and materials.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security.

Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax, a serious and globally distributed zoonosis affecting a wide range of wild and domestic animals, invariably also humans. However, although known to humans since biblical times, much remains to be elucidated concerning the ecology and transmission of this bacterium. Of particular interest is the Bacillus anthracis spore, the uptake of which is the predominant way to contract anthrax and which is legendary for its resilience in the environment and thus crucial for persistence and spread of the disease. Hence, the aim of this study is to review the natural transmission of Bacillus anthracis and investigate potential means by which soil persisting Bacillus anthracis spores reach concentrations sufficient to infect susceptible hosts. When reviewing the literature, three different theories can be distinguished. Firstly, ?the incubator area? hypothesis suggests that favourable soil factors, possibly in association with amoebas, may constitute an environment supporting repeated spore-bacterium-spore cycling, thus increasing the local amount of spores.

The thesis aims at, from a user perspective, examining how a group of industrial researchers understand the information seeking in their every day work. A qualitative method is employed. The empirical material consists of open-ended interviews with in all ten researchers. All of them work at the Swiss-Swedish Technology Company ABB's research laboratory in Västerås. The thesis is based on the opinion that the scientific knowledge production has become commercialised and that the scientific communication is going through certain changes.

Today Internet is clogged up and packed with homepages and information from both private persons and commercial companies. This has led to a decreased availability for a company to be noticed. The most common tool for consumers to use while searching for products online is via search engines. But because of the nature of these, not all companies can have good placements. Our research question was, "How do small online-companies attract consumers to their website"? The purpose of this thesis is to identify how a company works through online-communications and how to attract consumers to their home page.

Background: The Swedish Parliament passed a law change in late 2010, suspending the former requirement for all Swedish incorporated companies to have an auditor. The new limit values allow the smallest incorporated companies to dismiss the auditor of the company (or not appoint one in the case of a newly started company). The opinions of abolishing mandatory audit vary, and little research has been done post to the law change. However, a new situation has arisen, meaning the optional choice of voluntary audit, for some companies.Aims and research questions: The aim of the thesis is to examine the reasons behind voluntary audit in Sweden, as well as what value companies, having chosen audit, see in their auditor. The following research questions have been used in order to fulfill the aim of the thesis: ?Why do small private owner-led incorporated companies in Sweden voluntarily choose audit?? and ?What value does the voluntarily chosen auditor add to the companies??Methodology: The research questions were formulated after reviewing relevant literature and scientific articles regarding the topic of voluntary audit, as well as the recent law change in Sweden.

Audience responese technology (ART) often called clickers are becoming more common, not only internationally but also at Swedish universities. No direct Swedish research has been identified, this is however a major area of research internationally. There is both research on clickers positive effect on study results and how students feel about using clickers. This study has taken a Swedish translated version of Cheesman, Winograd, and Wehrman?s (2010) survey to investigate how perception of clickers differ between students in Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy and Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology.

Barns exponering för partnervåld har under de senaste åren blivit identifierat som ett samhällsproblem och tack vore den ständigt ökande forskningen kring ämnet, har kartläggningen av fenomenet varit möjlig. Syftet med föreliggande systematiska litteraturstudie var bland annat att baserat på den tidigare forskningen kring de partnervåldexponerade barnen belysa den psykologiska situation dessa barn kan befinna sig i samt ge en översikt av det aktuella kunskapsläget gällande exponeringens konsekvenser på barn. Det empiriska materialet utgjordes av peer review artiklar publicerade mellan 2000 och 2009. Resultatet tyder bland annat på att barnen uppvisar internaliserings- och/eller externaliseringsbeteenden som konsekvens av IPV exponeringen. Barnens kön, tidpunkten för exponeringen samt barnens sociala situation är de faktorer som har funnits vara betydelsefulla för exponeringens konsekvenser.