Germany has experienced low birth rates ever since the 1970s when they fell below the replacement levels of 2,1 children per woman. Since then, their birth rate has been around 1,5 children per woman, which has caused an overall aging population. The consequences of the declining birth rates is that the previous generations are becoming larger than the younger generations. This demographic shift raises concern about how its potential implications might affect different aspects of the country and its economy overall. The aim of this paper is to try to discern the dynamic between the share of the labor force in relation to total population, with the share of pensioners in relation to the total population.

The thesis work has been carried out at Volvo Aero Corporation (VAC) in Trollhättan. VAC has entered a partnership as developing and producing partner with engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney and is currently at the starting phase of producing the turbine rear frame (TEC) to the engine PW1000.The purpose of this study was to create a report on process level that describes the conditions and the potential with PW1000 TEC to reach the product cost calculation taking into account lead times and describe alternative method solutions.The report describes a comparison between the present flow (2012), a flow based on product cost calculation (2016) and a potential flow (2016). The work has mainly been based on acquiring the knowledge and information available to inspect the present flow; this has been done by workshop observations, meetings and gathering of the information that is available on the work site for the PW1000 TEC.The information obtained has been merged into an Excel document, called Roadmap. It serves as a roadmap with current situation as the start and the potential flow for 2016 as the goal. With the roadmap as a tool, assumptions have been taken considering the flow and how it will change, where processes have been eliminated, reduced or marked as a problem..

In most software engineering project, users are only involved in the beginning of the project as a help to design the requirements specification but users can be involved after this phase too, but is it effective to do so? With this report we would like to investigate how effective it is to involve users after the requirements specification has been written and approved. To find out how effective it is to involve the users we try some fast and simple involvement techniques on a quite far gone project. These techniques include ethnographic studies, prototypes and surveys. We also interviewed a couple of people who work with usability and finally delivered a report with our results to them to find out if they found our result relevant.

Since several rules of law have a consideration of age, the Swedish labor law collides in many ways with the prohibition of age discrimination. The employment directives of EU were implemented in the member countries after the shift of the millennium. Sweden was the last member to introduce age as a ground of discrimination in its legislation. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the Swedish regulations, regarding age discrimination and its application, is compatible with the EU.  The aim is also to investigate what is required to exclude the prohibition of age discrimination. The labor law provisions concerning the retirement age given in 32 a and 33 §§ LAS, priority rules according to 22 § LAS and the collectively agreed holiday benefit, which is regulated according to a worker's age, is to be investigated to see if they actually qualify for the exclusion of the prohibition against age discrimination. Furthermore, the paper intends to describe if the Swedish legislation has taken account of the research available on the subject of "age" and ?age discrimination?.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva ambulanspersonalens självskattning/upplevelse av smärta i rygg, leder och muskler samt sömn, vila och återhämtning. Ytterligare ett syfte var att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i nämnda besvär relaterat till kön och yrkeskategori. Data samlades in med enkäter och personal vid fyra ambulansstationer i Mellansverige deltog i studien. Sammanlagt delades 110 enkäter ut och 89 enkäter besvarades (svarsfrekvens 81 %). Resultatet avseende själskattad smärta visade att 53 personer (59,6 %) uppgav att de hade haft ländryggsbesvär de senaste 12 månaderna.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

This examination work aims to describe how a supply chain around the biggest pellets factory in Sweden will be configured in a logistic perspective. The plant and associated infrastructure are in the building phase and will have production start on the 2 November 2009. The key question that is set in this examination work is to recognize the logistic processes which are essential for an effective flow of materials and information that link the source of supply with the ultimate customer. In order to get the answer, a flowcharting of these supply chain processes is required for understanding the pipeline activities such as input and storage of raw material, the production system and the output of pellets to the customers. The basis for this supply chain map is a model-based representation of these logistic processes and activities that are involved around the pellets factory.

Internet and social networks have become important features in today?s society. We spend numerous hours on browsing and communicating through these platforms. This development has also led to a shift of power from businesses to consumers. Today?s consumers have more control of if, when and what messages they are exposed to.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

The aim of this Bachelor?s thesis is to obtain understanding and knowledge about how literary scholars collaborate regarding information. Seven scholars have been studied in the aim to find out social and cultural elements which create particular prerequisites for their practice, with focus on information sharing. The method used has consisted of semi-structured interviews. The informants have been studied from a socio cultural and domain analysis starting point, which means that they are studied in the light of being members in their practice.

The aim of this study is to describe how the cooperation between franchisee and franchisor evolves over time. The parties? work responsibilities are explored as an ingredient of the cooperation. Creation of relational aspects is also studied, as well as how adaptation of the concept is handled throughout the partnership. This study takes on an abductive approach and is based on interviews with franchisees of one franchise system, performed at different stages of the respective cooperations.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the significance of organizing social- cooperative in relation to individual empowerment; and how this empowerment can be used to better the situation of others. Young surfers is a social- cooperativ that is run by cooperators with experience of substance abuse and criminality. The social- cooperativ is built on the premise that the cooperators are to set up and run a screen-printing shop where they will print t-shirts and sweatshirts. The purpose of this business is that the cooperators are given the opportunity to work and that youths with social problems such as substance abuse and criminality are given the opportunity to work-train. My study is comprised of a series of interviews and observations that I have conducted in relation to the cooperators of Young Surfers.

Many of the schools premises are neglected and the physical environment has not been prioritised. Instead the focus is set on scientific learning methods and pedagogic. The need for an environmental shift has not got an essential place in the governing documents for schools, although the focus on school premises should be suited to the purpose of the activity and for the pupils needs. Today the interest and the need of research within the physical environment is evermore increasing. The Swedish Work Environment Authority, present in their activityplan for 2006, that the schools premises and equipment is not adjusting to today?s activity and it is in bad condition that can lead to work-related injuries.The purpose of this essay is to bring to light a different pedagogic train of thought around the surrounding environments importance, for students learning and to compare these with our study of a selection of classrooms and what the teachers to these classrooms consider about the environments importance.

This essay aims to explain the fluctuations in the Swedish transition rate to higher education between 1923 and 2002. With theories of human capital, and screening, as points of departure, seven variables are selected and their correlation with the transition rate investigated by use of graphs and tables. The variables are unemployment, youth unemployment, the supply of academics, cohort size, number of high school graduates from programs preparing for ensuing studies, relative wage trends for worker categories with differing levels of education, and structural phase. Results show that no single variable nor the theories of human capital or screening can explain the fluctuations in transition rate in full. Instead I propose a theoretic model which amalgamates the above and places risk aversion as the driving force behind the individual?s educational decision.

Since 1995 the musical Kristina från Duvemåla has been performed on many national theatre stages in Sweden and is still obtaining success and fame. It is based on novels by the famous Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg, Utvandrarna (1949), Invandrarna (1952), Nybyggarna (1956) and Sista brevet till Sverige (1959) that revolve around a Swedish family emigrating to the United Stated during the 19th century. This thesis investigates both the novels and the musical adaptation in a comparative way. Theory of adaptation and intermediality is used to analyse differences and similiarities of the stories used in the novels and the musical. It can be assumed that major changes were implemented in the adaptation of the main characters, specifically Kristina.