Swedish university libraries traditionally collect recreational readingmaterial only to support the teaching and research interests of theirinstitutions. However many university libraries hold a substantial yetunspecified collection of popular fiction. This thesis investigates theextent of these collections and examines academic librarians' viewsabout students' recreational reading in the academic context and theirattitudes towards the role of fiction and of readers' advisory inacademic libraries. The theoretical framework includes literature andresearch about the benefits of reading for pleasure, collections' rolesand readers' advisory strategies. The empirical material was gatheredthrough quantitative surveys sent to academic librarians in Sweden.The results show that academic librarians are positive about thebenefits of recreational reading for university students.

Preschool is an important social arena for children. This might be the first time that children find themselves in a larger social context and create their first peer-relations. The aim of this study was to examine children?s peer-relations with particular focus on the acts of social exclusion and inclusion, and how children use different strategies to exclude and include each other. Another aim was to investigate how both verbal and non-verbal communication is used in these processes.This study has an ethnographic approach, and the use of video observation as a method enabled us to capture the children?s everyday interactions at preschool.Our results show that children use a number of different strategies to exclude other children that seek access to an ongoing activity to protect the interactional space that they already share.

This study aims to analyse the connection between poverty reduction and sustainable development through strategies used for the reduction of poverty. With the methodology of content analysis of three policy documents to provide and easy overview of how the government of Ethiopia is planning to achieve sustainable and long-term poverty alleviation. The focus of this study will be on Ethiopia, a country with very high economic growth in the past years but still with hight poverty rates. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the already existing and broad knowledge and research of sustainable development and poverty alleviation and contribute with more research in Ethiopia where the research done in this specific area and region is not in abundance. In this study all dimensions of sustainable development, social, economic and ecological are included to get a more holistic picture of the sustainable development in the government?s plans and its challenges.

A future expansion of wind power in the Nordic power system makes the balancing for the transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnät (SvK) more complicated. Up to the hour of delivery the balance responsible parties? (BRP) makes prognoses and plans, for consumption and production, to help maintain the balance in the electrical grid. How well this is accomplished is affected by the setup of the market design. Therefore SvK has proposed the following possible changes in market design: Increase the imbalance costsIntensify the regulation of imbalancesIncrease the temporal resolution on the different marketsPresent the prices for balancing power in real-timeModify the balancing market to simplify auction of consumption bidsA mapping over the BRPs? processes within planning and trading on the day-ahead, intra-day, and the balancing market has been performed in this thesis.

The research in this thesis attempts to understand what happens when children (3-6 years of age) interact with each other in the context of free play in two pre-school settings when adults are not involved. The aim of the study was to get a closer look at how children create relationships and how they protect and defend their interactional spaces. Data was gathered through ethnographically inspired methodology, using video observation to capture the everyday interactions of the children. Results were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to peer cultures. Previous research suggests that it is very important for children to maintain their interactions with peers and gaining access to play.

Research in the field of gaming and the gaming culture shows that the culture is characterized by sexism and hypermasculinity, however a majority of this research is conducted in an Anglo-Saxon context. Therefore the aim of this study was to elucidate the Swedish gaming discourse in relation to gender, gendered norms and stereotypes. We also sought to examine the relationship between the editorial content and the blog comments. The study was based on a critical discourse analysis with a gender perspective, applied to five Swedish gaming blogs. By implementing power theory and encoding/decoding theory, we have concluded that there is a discursive struggle, where one part of the gaming culture is characterized by male dominance, while the other part of the discourse is showing signs of resistance to this hypermasculinity.

This study aims to highlight the crisis and adjustment process in individuals who suffered myocardial infarction. The research questions focus on the informants? experiences of the crisis and life adjustment process, and illuminate the coping strategies that the informants describe important. By using a narrative method and applyingthe crisis theory and coping theory as theoretical guidelines, this study endeavors to illuminate individuals' experiences of the disease from their own perspective. The empirical material consists of four life stories gatheredthrough semi-structured interviews.

The aim of the study is to get a better understanding of leader's reactions in a crisis situation, and to examine whether locus of control and coping strategies can be related to leaders need for social support. The role of a leader in a crisis situation is complex and includes several aspects which must be illustrated to understand the leader's situation. Four leaders have participated in the study. The methods that have been used are questionnaires for measuring locus of control and coping and semi-structured interviews. The results show that search for social support cannot be seen as an outcome of a specific locus of control or coping strategy.

International media groups and the freedom of speech are two issues that have been questioned during the last years when large media groups control a large amount of public-oriented information. The masters thesis at hand considers three debates that illuminate Bonniers and AB Mariebergs hereinafter referred to as the Bonnier Media Group positions on the media market. The objective of such a study is to establish in the face of the theory on hegemonia, for example from which factors the media actors deduce their argumentation when discussing the above-mentioned topic and the meaning of such a discussion in our time. The thesis also discusses whether freedom of speech and free opinion are affected by the increasing power of the Bonnier Media Group and if they, as a result, have diminished their own cultural and liberal assets, features that are firmly associated with the company. I conclude that various features have come to change the media market during the last years.

This project has revolved around finding better ways of overseeing vibrations of the gearbox at a wind power station. The gearbox has been a huge problem at the stations located at Gässlingen and the sooner the warning of an incoming breakdown is at hand the more money you can save from preparations. The work has been carried out together with Askalon AB in cooperation with consults from ÅF. Askalon is a company with a department focused on overseeing vibrations and it is in collaboration with that department the work has been carried out. During this work, new positions for the sensors and new methods of gathering and analyzing data have been worked out. This was then implemented at a wind power station to be tried out on site.

This is a thesis about the American empire. I also focus my work to see if this American empire is declining. The two main questions I ask and want to answer in this thesis are: is America an empire and is it in decline?I first conclude that America has been an empire ever since the end of the Second World War. The sheer military and economic power of the American empire matches and exceeds the ones before them.

This diploma work on D-level is made in cooperation with Varnäsföretagen AB in Eskilstuna. The company performs contract manufactured aluminium goods. This work is a continuation on earlier diploma work in Varnäsföretagen AB. Even if the industry process consumes much energy for melting the aluminium goods, they consume a great amount of oil to warm up the building. The purpose of this work is to examine some places in the building and the process to see how much energy it is possible to recycles to the heating system and reduce the costs for heating.

Bakgrund: Under senare år har många företag valt mer processorienterad inriktning påverksamheten, framförallt i syfte för att förbättra kundvärdet. Många företag har enmer hierarkisk struktur i utgångsläget, vilket innebär att vertikal och horisontellstruktur kombineras. Ett vanligt misstag är då att nya processorienterade styrmedelinförs, utan att existerande vertikalt orienterade styrmedel tas bort. Detta leder tillatt företagets styrmedel sänder ut motstridiga styrsignaler. För att öka företagetsmöjlighet att uppnå uppsatta mål, så krävs det att dess styrmedel är kompatibla.I sämre tider är det vanligt att företag formulerar mål med Net Working Capital somgrund.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how well vision and strategies communicates from division level to underlying business unit levels with focus on the Balanced Scorecard Concept. The investigation was carried out within the ANS division and two of its underlying business units at the LFV Group (Swedish Airports and Air Navigation Services). ANS is responsible for the air navigation services in Sweden and the production of the services is carried out of the business units AER (En Route) and ATA (Tower and Approach). With Air Navigation Services means supervision and conducting air traffic mainly within national air space. The purpose of the services is to insure that air traffic could be carried out in a safe way.The Balanced Scorecard was introduced for the first time in the beginning of the 1990´s.

Sarah Kane?s first play Blasted (1995) has often been read in a normative and biographical way by critics, authors and previous researchers. This essay makes a supplementary close reading of Blasted from gender and genealogical perspectives and utilizes theoretical works by Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray and Michel Foucault. My study makes clear that the characters different positions in language and talk create and maintain a power imbalance between them. Efforts to change and develop one?s individual position in language and talk are being made throughout the play since it is the only way to bring about a change in the social power structure.