For innovative organizations and companies it is essential to use existing knowledge to avoid spending time and resources on already existing innovations. By using patent information, companies are able to get a Picture of what is already done in their area of interest. The main purpose of the study is to examine the information use in small and medium-sized enterprises that are members of the Swedish Inventor?s Association, focusing on patent information. The study examines the use of patent information and which barriers the companies have to patent information.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the lower secondary school teaching in religion leads to a positive understanding and openness, concerning different religions and cultures. We want to study how pupils in grade eight and nine in two lower secondary schools in a multicultural community comprehend different religions. Since we choose a pupils perspective we decided to do a questionnaire to get a wide ground. As a complement we interviewed twelve pupils and also did observations during their religion classes. During our study we focused on three different themes.

The existence for companies today consists of constant challenges with customers that want more individual products with high quality as quickly as possible. For a company to be able to have a short delivery time, it must also have a short production time. This makes streamlining and improvement of processes a big part of a company?s workThis thesis has been carried out together with the company Lasermax Roll Systems AB, a world-leading manufacturer of feeding, finishing and monitoring systems for high-speed digital printers. They manufacture their products according to the assembling for costumer order principle.The purpose with this thesis is to map and analyze, the assembling process and the test process at Lasermax Roll Systems AB.

Cochleaimplantat (CI) är en av de största medicinska innovationer som gjorts under de senaste 20 åren. Med hjälp av ett sådant kan barn med grav hörselnedsättning eller dövhet få möjlighet att höra och utveckla ett talat språk. Många barn med CI uppnår dock inte den förväntade språknivån. Orsakerna till detta är ännu inte fullt förstådda och vidare forskning är därför nödvändig. I föreliggande studie deltog 9 barn i åldrarna 6;7 ? 12;4 år med CI.

The main goal with the master thesis has been to do a status evaluation of the chain machinery with its start chain and wire to secure the production on a short basis due to that a reconstruction is not planned at this time. An evaluation of the condition of the start chain and the rollers in the chain depository has been done. An offer has been requested for a new start chain and the evaluation of the start chains may be a basis for the decision taking. The production has been able to go on, although it has arisen some problems which have been difficult to find the causes for. There is no gathered ?Picture? of the machinery status and a mapping of each machinery has been compiled of comprehensive logs.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how gender equality can be used in the workplace, its possible effects, and what collaboration can contribute to the subject of gender equality. A combination of legal sociological and legal dogmatic methodology has been used to examine the EU and Swedish law, how equality should be approached and what previous studies have concluded. An interview has been conducted to provide a clearer Picture of how gender equality appears in practice, in the modern workplace. An equality plan should be conducted every three years and applies to employers who are responsible for more than 25 employees. The manual should include a description of the measures considered necessary in the workplace in order to promote gender equality. How an equality plan should be developed is not specifically outlined in the current law, and thus this is left up to the employer to determine.

The essay investigates the visual element as seen by the audience and artist to be of greatest importance to a musicalperformance. The study was conducted in the form of a field work which included doing interviews with artists, surveys of the audience and interpretive observations of live performance. The fieldwork was conducted in three different environments in which I found myself on the spot and performed the various stages included in the field work. It was done to create a surface that could be used in an essay, and through that use this material to compare and analyze my results and in the end be able to answer my questions. I started from eight different factors which all could beexperienced visually on stage.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how customers, by interacting with each other, can communicate and create the image of a brand. We find this topic to be relevant since there are no previous studies conducted concerning the customers influence on the brand image. Our ambition has been to describe in what ways and to what extent the customer can affect and influence the brand image by communicating with other customers. To fulfill our purposed we have targeted three important questions which are:? In which ways can the customer affect the communicated image of a brand?? To what extent can the customer influence the brand image and the perceived value?? Who has control over the brand, the customer or the company?For this study we have used a qualitative approach in which we have conducted eight personal interviews with brand consultants and the editor of the magazine Dagens Media which has given us the foundation for our analysis.

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how a number of municipalities in Stockholm County proceed when they allocate land and establish land allocation agreements for exploitation, and to investigate how a number of municipalities define land allocations and land allocation agreements on the occasion of public land sales. The aim of this thesis is to describe the allocation methods a municipally uses when they offer land for sale and to give an insight regarding which correlation different land allocation agreements have in different municipalities.Methods used are: (1) a literature review where the underlying theory for land allocations and land allocation agreements have been studied; (2) a questionnaire have been done to complement the literature review and to provide a Picture of how a number of different municipalities in Stockholm County use and apply land allocations; (3) an agreement audit have been done to see the extent to which different agreement terms exists.Responses from the questionnaire, together with the definitions form different municipality?s land allocation policies and the literature review, resulted in a definition of a land allocation and a land allocation agreement. The agreement audit shows that agreement terms regarding: price or price indication, location, cost-sharing and planning costs are the most common agreement terms within the municipalities we have investigated.The study suggests that there is some confusion regarding land allocation agreements and the meaning of these, that became apparent when agreements where gathered, despite a careful explanation that it was land allocation agreements we requested, we still got exploitation agreements and purchase agreements. Therefore, we consider it necessary with an official definition of a land allocation agreement well anchored in the Planning and Building Act together with the rules of development agreements or other legislation.That there is a lack of research within the subject becomes evident when reports, essays, and other literature generally refers so the same sources.Keywords: land allocation, land allocation agreement and public land sales.

This essay will focus on the significance of gender in toys´ portrayed in children books for the age 3-5years. The aim for the essay, partly, is to highlight how gender stereotypes can come forth and affect children through the way toys are illustrated within children?s books. The essay will address books from two different time periods, the first period being the 40-50- 60's and the other being the 00´s. The questions to be addressed in this essay is; what type of toys? children play with in the books used in the analysis, and if a change can be detected between the different time periods in terms of gender awareness in what type of toys are presented in the books.The main method used in this essay is an iconological image analysis in which the first step is mapping, other methods used is analysis and interpretation.

When it comes to political representation, all over the world women almost always make up a minority of representatives in the legislative bodies. The Scandinavian countries in general and Sweden in particular have though been exceptions to this rule with, when compared to other countries, a rather high percentage of women in elected positions. This development took off in the seventies: during that decade the unit percentage of women in the Swedish Riksdag rose by double!The aim for this thesis is to analyse what underlying ideas influenced this advance. The focus is on three different female party federations, who are believed to have had a great impact on this increase of women politicians through their influence in their own mother parties. The federations analysed are the ones connected to the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party and the Liberal party.

Background: The lack of knowledge regarding preschool children's mental health prompted Uppsala University, in collaboration with Uppsala Kommun, to start a study in which children aged 3, 4, and 5 years are screened using the "Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire" (SDQ). This screening method has been introduced into the majority of Uppsala County child care centers (BVC), and the nurses' experience of working with this method is examined in this paper.Method: A qualitative approach with semi-structured questions was used to interview ten nurses who pioneered the SDQ Method. The interviews where recorded, transcribed and analyzed using content analysis.Results: Three themes and nine categories were identified from the interviews. The themes were: "Attitude and motivation are important when working with the form", "Clearer overall Picture with preschool answer", and "A tool to identify difficulties". The results show that the nurses were satisfied with the form.

Tourism is a growing industry that brings in a lot of money each year, range ofactivities increases and people travel more than ever before. More and more chooseto move from rural areas to larger towns, at the same time when people are travellingthey want to visit quieter places that can offer outdoor experiences in the nature. Thisis something that tourism businesses located in rural areas have a great advantage of.But when the range is large, it becomes important for firms to communicate with themarket, to make the tourists choose to visit them.The purpose of this study is to investigate which media channels and target groupsthat tourism businesses use and how they reflect on the importance of communicatewith the market. To find this out, interviews have been conducted with tree differententrepreneur, all located in Jämtland. The theory?s that has been used is strategiccommunication, public relations, market communication, media channels, socialmedia and target groups.The result shows that all companies think that thecommunication with the market is an important part in the work with the company.The communication gets the business a chance to be seen and it becomes more easilyto create relationships with the stakeholders.

The public libraries in Sweden has an obligation to serve all of its citizens, but despite of this they often fail to include their LGBTQ-patrons. Since the year of 2008 RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) have arranged a specially designed certification-process based on normcritical criterias that a chosen institution should fulfill to make their work more inclusive for LGBTQ-people. Sollentuna is the first municipal in Sweden to certificate all of their libraries. This study aims to examine what the certification have meant for the public library in Sollentuna and how a normcritical view can contribute to include LGBTQ-patrons at the library. As a method we used a qualitative interview-study to get a full Picture of the certification-process and its influence on the public library of Sollentuna.

Library and information science (LIS), being a research area characterized by theoretical discord and definition disarray, provides an interesting field of inquiry. Its content, boundaries, scope and superior identity are not clearly stated. This Master s thesis focuses on a thus far unexplored perspective on the discipline: a conceivable statistic and causes- and- effect relationship between the LIS students appreciated identification with the superior identity of the discipline, and the chosen vocational direction within the field. This relationship is examined through testing a working hypothesis on the results of a major quantitative questionnaire survey. The theory behind our research derives mainly from Thomas Kuhn and Richard Whitley.