?Studies have shown that patients receiving mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit (ICU), who are entirely dependent on the nursing staff, often experience frustration due to a temporary loss of the voice source. Limited communication is an important factor contributing to patient discomfort. Nursing staff also report communication as frustrating and difficult.The aim of the present study is to introduce a neck-type electrolarynx as a communication aid in an ICU, to study the nursing staff experiences of communication with tracheotomized patients receiving mechanical ventilation, and to examine the patient´s experiences regarding communicative abilities. Communication between a ventilator treated, tracheotomized patient and members of the nursing staff was recorded and analyzed according to Principles of Conversation Analysis (CA).The results show that several members of the nursing staff experience difficulties communicating with tracheotomized patients receiving mechanical ventilation.

The aim of this thesis is to study a number of standards and theories, from the two research areas human-computer interaction and psychology, about how a graphical user interface (GUI) should be composed in order to facilitate interaction between humans and computers. Special emphasis is put on how the GUI should take into consideration the strengths and limitations of human cognition and perception. A study of three web catalogues shows how these theories appear when concretised. The following questions are answered in this thesis:What guidelines and styleguides can be found that specify the design of a user-friendly GUI?How do a few library catalogues on the web match a selection of these design Principles?The guidelines are extracted from literature concerning human-computer interaction, psychology, automated library systems and web design.

The underlying purpose of this study is to investigate how the libraries in Sweden organize and administrate the service of providing literature in other languages than Swedish. The study focuses on the central guiding Principles that regulate the provision of multilingual literature and how these guidelines are implemented in to practice at the libraries. As the guidelines are closely connected to the official discourse in Sweden concerning policies targeted towards immigrants, the guidelines will be examined from a perspective of integration politics. To assemble data a survey has been conducted looking into factors such as how the libraries perceive the guidelines, how the libraries do business intelligence and user inquires to reach out to the users of the multilingual media, forms for statistics and method of working. The results points out that the libraries in their work with multilingual media are confronted with three tensions; the first tension is that between the libraries aim to promote equality and freedom for the individual and at the same time to fulfil certain collective interests and goals.

This masters thesis investigates the relation between China and the Information Society as it is manifested in the UN conference the World Summit on the Information Society WSIS. The first phase of this two-phase conference took place in Geneva 10-12 December 2003, with two documents, Declaration of Principles DP and Plan of action PA, as main results. The information policy is central to an authoritarian rule in its efforts to keep control over the national identity. The thesis investigates the impact that the information revolution and Internet might have on the Chinese national identity through the acceptance of DP and PA in various aspects. With the use of the information science theories by Manuel Castells and Frank Webster, the vision of WSIS was compared with the Chinese information policy.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how administrative officers at the Swedish social insurance agency experience and deal with the goal conflicts they may experience. Furthermore, the purpose is to gain a greater understanding on how they perceive their role in the implementation process, and their position as the link between the citizens and the state. Two potential conflicts are examined; between quantitative goals and performance measures and those more qualitative and hard to measure; between economic values such as cost efficiency and productivity and democratic values such as the rule of law. The other conflict examined is that between implementing and following the laws set forth, take into account the individual needs and interests of the citizen. The theoretical framework consists of Lundquist?s theory on public officers as the guardians of democracy, which means that they should not only implement laws and rules according to political intentions, but also make sure that the democratic values and Principles are followed in the relationship between state and citizen.

2012 was the year when the podcast had a breakthrough in Sweden. As media corporatehouses developed, they adopted new forms to mediate journalistic material, whereas the podcasts was one of them. The podcast has had a rather informal reputation in Sweden in contrary to The United States and Great Britain, where it holds a higher sense of prestige and professionalism. It is therefore relevant to investigate what happens when media corporatehouses i Sweden embraces the podcast through themes such as tabloidization, commercialism, convergence and divergence. We chose to investigate the content of the podcast in the tabloid press Aftonbladet, and in the serious press, Dagens Nyheter.

The aim of this Master thesis is to delineate the ideology behind the public library politics in Gothenburg, during 1945-50. The study is an archive survey. To be able to account for the public library politics in Gothenburg during the period, the author has studied documents in the archive of the public library board in Gothenburg. The description of the politics is the source for the research papers analysis. The thesis principal issue, is on what ideological basis the public library politics has been formulated in Gothenburg, during the period of interest? The concept of ideology is defined as a coherent system of norms and values.

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the everyday work of school counsellors in the City of Stockholm with a gender perspective by studying the school counsellors ? talk about masculinity and femininity. The aim was to reach an understanding of how parts of the counsellors everyday work are influenced by gender through the perspective of the school counsellor. The study was conducted using qualitative methods. Six school counsellors, five woman and one man, were interviewed.

The purpose of this thesis is to assist the Swedish energy company NIBE Energy Systems in their studies of adaptive regulation applicable to electrical water heaters. Due to coming energy classifications of these appliances in the European Union, NIBE Energy Systems needs to use adaptive regulation, called Smart Control, to keep their products in the best possible energy class and remain competitive to the market. By using this Smart Control regulation a 2-3 % improve-ment of efficiency can be credited the system. This is a small number, but heavily needed, since the energy classes are based on the idea that the European Union is provided with electricity from coal condensate power resulting in a 40 % maximum efficiency. Furthermore, doing noth-ing will result in some water heaters not being approved to use on the market from 2015 due to low efficiency.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks, the landscape of the freedom of religion has changed. The issues now facing freedom of religion varies greatly from the issues that the drafters of the universal declaration of human rights faced after World War II.In the light of the new issues that States face in the intersection of religion and societal interest, scholars have criticized the European Court of Human Rights to give too much leeway to the States in determining how the human rights should be implemented, by using the doctrine of margin of appreciation. Critics of the margin of appreciation claim that it is based on culture relativism and that the doctrine undermines the universality of the human rights. In order to decide if the margin of appreciation has indeed led to a relativization of the human rights I compared it to the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee and its use of the Syracusa Principles. My conclusion is that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be considered to be based on culture relativism.

The drug treatment staff attitude towards needle exchange is what investigates in this study. The aim of this study is to see what?s affecting the standpoints in the needle exchange issue and also to investigate if the needle exchange is compatible with Swedish drug policy. The study has a qualitative approach and it?s based on eight semi-structured interviews with drug treatment staff.

The general contract law principle of loyalty between negotiators, in deliberation, leads to a duty of disclosure for negotiators. The extent of this duty of disclosure is influenced by many different factors; amongst others the type of agreement, the negotiators knowledge and opportunity of procuring knowledge. The general duty of disclosure is both a part of the contract law principle of loyalty between negotiators in negotiating a contract, and an indirectly statutory obligation, that, if neglected will lead to nullification of the agreement. The legislator has stated that the general contract law, Lag (1915:218) om avtal och andra rättshandlingar på förmögenhetsrättens område (avtalslagen), should be used to regulate negotiating of contracts, including the negotiation of contracts of employment. In arbetsdomstolens judging, additional factors have been weighed in, and the judgement is done also through the use of a concept taken from employment law, the concept of ?saklig grund för uppsägning?.

The major environmental problems that we have today are frequently mentioned in the media today. One example is the ongoing debate regarding global warming and its causes and consequences. There are also several other problems in our society such as segregation and social tensions. Most agree that we must do something to solve these problems and that we must try to achieve a sustainable development for the entire planet. But how should it actually be done and what trade-offs, compromises, sacrifices and changes must be made?The purpose of this paper is to examine how these issues are being dealt with in Swedish city planning.

Ever since Lipsky wrote about street-level bureaucrats in 1980 the main belief has been that certain characteristics of their jobs make it exceptionally difficult to severely reduce their discretion. However, discretion comes at a price and if public servants abuse their power the legitimacy of government is at risk and ultimately even the democracy.This thesis address this question by analysing the Swedish employment service which in the beginning of 2001 started a project called ?Af Sverige? trying to improve internal rule of law. By comparing two local and fairly equal jobcentres and how the street-level bureaucrats within use their discretion, I seek to find support for my hypotheses that organizing local jobcentres according to the Principles of machine bureaucracy plays a significant part in reducing discretion.My findings show that a jobcentre characterised by strict rules, few units, good communications and a forthright manager who delegates formal power to the employees results in a stricter and more uniform application of regulations among the street-level bureaucrats. My conclusion is therefore unambiguous.

This thesis presents a study aiming to identify the selection criteria for the digitization of posters at the National Library of Sweden (Kungl. biblioteket). The theory is that cultural heritage institutions are empowered to decide how our cultural heritage is presented as they select what items (or, as in this study, posters) will be digitized. The poster is studied as it is an interesting media form which historically was an important means of communication. The poster can represent and reflect historical events and opinions in society.