This thesis, drawing from several empirical investigations, reaches the conclusion that there seems to be a positive correlation between the level of democracy and the level of state capacity in Latin American countries. This correlation is explained by a hypothesis derived from Rational Choice theory. With some important caveats, this conclusion is then applied to the discussion about democracy as a form of government. Within democracy, the thesis also offers an insight into different electoral systems and its possible implications, mostly on a theoretical level. The thesis only exists in swedish as of yet..

The purpose of this thesis was to find out how travel agencies work with relationships to their customers on the Internet. A case study with two companies was conducted, Ticket and Resia. In all four interviews were done, two in every company that served as basis for our conclusions. The study showed that it is important for travel agencies and other types of companies to create awareness of their web site in as many ways as possible and make it easy for the customer to find the web site. The contents on the web site have to be of current interest, it should be well structured and the usage of the web site should be easy.

The common literature about strategic alliances offers a very fragmented picture. This thesis gives a theoretical overview on strategic alliances and builds the basis for the following examination of the different dimensions most strategic alliances have. The examination of the different dimensions is the crucial point of this thesis. Here the reader gets a detailed insight into the different dimensions and the implications they have on the design of a particular strategic alliance. This examination leads in the end to a more differentiated view on strategic alliances and the insight that no simple models exist, which give a sufficient basis for decision-making and understanding strategic alliances, today.

The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in our homes. It is a place for social engagements, meetings between people and activity. How the kitchen looks today is a concept sprung from the Swedish kitchen standard of 1952. Eventhou this standard no longer exists it is a model of how kitchens are designed today. The kitchens most often sold today come from one of four major kitchen manufacturers in Sweden.My thesis investiges an alternative kitchen concept.

The purpose to this survey is to map out the affordances available in the outdoor environment of one preschool. This has been executed through three episodes of observing children at that preschool during their outdoor play. All visible affordances has been written down and later on summarized in different themes where the most interesting meeting places in the outdoor environment at the pre-school have been described. The result of the study shows what the children at this preschool do in their outdoor environment. It also shows the importance of the arrangement of material and environment in order to be able to support childrens play.

Background: Relatives to people with schizophrenia often experience a great burden and inmany cases takes a lot of responsibility for the person suffering from schizophrenia. Nationalguidelines emphasize the importance for relatives to be involved in mental health care, butunfortunately that is not always the case. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigateand describe how relatives to people with schizophrenia have experienced collaboration andsupport from mental health services, and what requests they might have for the futureregarding the design of collaboration and support. Method: Qualitative approach. Interviewbased study with qualitative content analysis as a method.

In this essay I analyze the way my collection of poetry relates to the concept cyclic. What is cyclic and what different interpretations are there concerning the concept? Which other related concepts are there regarding things that seem to reoccur regularly? How does the cyclical, the circular, relate to the linear in regard, for example, to the perception of time? Life often creates the sense that different phenomena and experiences repeat themselves. Different processes are conducted according to regular or irregular cyclical phases, situations seem familiar and events can be relived.         Starting from my writing project Sinnligt kviller, a collection of poems, I discuss these questions in themselves and the impact they have had on my collection. I describe the phenomenon cyclic as a result of the emotions and moods this term creates in a more or less decisive way.         The intention with this paper is to show how Sinnligt kviller offers different perspectives of and reflections upon the various feelings provoked by the cyclic in our lives, feelings that are given my own voice in the literary text under study..

Background: Knowledge management is a concept that is considered of increasing importance in the developing knowledge society. Previous research in the area has to a large extent been based on large multinational companies. Purpose: The thesis aims to clarify how middle-sized Swedish management consultancy companies work with knowledge management. The thesis intends to use existing theories about knowledge management to explain the effect of size and area of operation on management consultancy companies? knowledge management.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze success factors in the integration of students with special needs in regular schools. This will be done through the case study of a nine year old autistic student in a small town public school ? a fairly representative case for the Swedish school system. The data collection methods used in the paper are; three participant observations of the student, and a qualitative interview with two of the student?s teachers.

The common literature about strategic alliances offers a very fragmented picture. This thesis gives a theoretical overview on strategic alliances and builds the basis for the following examination of the different dimensions most strategic alliances have. The examination of the different dimensions is the crucial point of this thesis. Here the reader gets a detailed insight into the different dimensions and the implications they have on the design of a particular strategic alliance. This examination leads in the end to a more differentiated view on strategic alliances and the insight that no simple models exist, which give a sufficient basis for decision-making and understanding strategic alliances, today.

In this report hardware based alternatives to password authentication in a Windows domain are evaluated for the needs of a certain company. In order to investigate the demands on such alternatives interviews with people concerned have been carried out. The demands which resulted from the interviews have been used to select types of hardware tokens for evaluation. Two products which offer authentication with smart cards and USB tokens have been selected and closer evaluated. These are RSA Passage which offers both hardware options and Rainbow iKey which uses USB tokens.

AbstractThe number of natural disasters are increasing. Disaster relief today is improving, but not enough.The purpose of my graduation paper is to present a new solution to shelters. It?s important to remember the human, social and environmental aspects when designing a shelter for disaster relief. Each group within the population has to be able to use the shelter and benefit from it.

The aim of this study is to examine which communication channels and communication strategies Umea? municipality could use for information concerning outdoor recreation. To achieve this aim the following theories and views have been applied: social communication, communication strategies, two-way symmetrical communication, social media and uses and gratifications. The study was conducted through four focus group interviews and one informant interview. The focus groups consisted of four groups of outdoor enthusiasts in Umea? municipality: outdoor interested students, organized outdoor enthusiasts, active families and active seniors.

Background: Commerce over the Internet has exploded in recent years. For many companies it has become a necessity to offer their products overthe Internet. This new market ought to change the conditions for relations between customers and suppliers. Purpose: Our aim is to describe and analyse the factors that influence the relations between customers and suppliers, from a customer view, when commerce is conducted over the Internet.Delimitations: The study is limited to B2B commerce with IT-products. Methodology: The thesis is based on a study of the company IMS, their e-commerce site and organisations that buy IT-products over the Internet.Conclusion: Internet opens up new possibilities for custom designed offers.

The aim of this study is to investigate a specific form of Special Interest Tourism (SIT), namely health- and fitnesstravels. This kind of travelling is studied from a Swedish perspective and includes aspects like gender and age in active tourism. It also includes which travel motivations that lies beyond the choice of an active vacation.The study is based on a survey that was sent in an e-mail to the health tourism company InShapeTravel´s customers. The answers to the survey has been analyzed and related to earlier research about active tourism.The result shows that more women than men participate in the kind of healthy travels that InShapeTravel offers. A majority of the respondents are between 41-60 years old and the most common travel motivation was ?Better physic/psychic wellbeing?. .