The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The purpose of this study is to examine and explain why three Swedish public libraries failedin their ambition to act as information services for small and medium-sized firms (SMF). To support this purpose two major assumptions are made:1) Public libraries who plan to run this kind of "business" must act with the same means as "professional" services.2) The service must be adjusted to the information needs of the customer.Based on these assumptions sixteen factors which are crucial to the "success" for this kind of service are presented.Applied to the information services of Lidkoping, Sölvesborg and Västervik, these factors reveal a number of shortcomings and mistakes made by the libraries.To understand this result these information services are seen as parts of a traditional Swedish public "library-thought". It is shown that, fundamental ideas in the way the public libraries are defined, like the responsibility to act in a neutral and democratic way, also characterised the three information services.These ideas together with the opinion of SMF as a "rational" information-consumer resulted in information services who did not meet the information-needs and information-behaviour of SMF..

The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge about how teachers in preschool regard their participation in children's play. Through this study you will get an insight into how teachers' involvement affects children's learning. I have chosen to look at the study from a socio-cultural perspective.The study is based on qualitative interviews with four pre-school teachers.The result shows that teachers believe that it is important to attend in children's play to support, challenge and develop their play. One sees that teachers take different roles based on the needs of the children?s group, such as actively participate in the play, being a supportive teacher, serve as inspiration or to be an observer.

The purpose of this essay is to explore how social media affect the political orientation and commitment of youths. Three scientific questions highlight the purpose from different angles. The didactic perspective is discussed in the initial and closing discussion, and is analyzed in the corresponding chapter. Two methods are involved in the study; one survey and one interview with a focus group. The survey had a total of 98 respondents from four different classes, all in the first grade of upper secondary school.

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

The purpose of this master thesis is to use marketing theory on the library?s activities. The marketing theory used is the 4Ps; product, price, promotion and place, as it's presented by Philip Kotler. Because the library can be seen as a service oriented organization Christian Gronroos theory of marketing in the service industry also has been used. A case study of the public library in Broby was made to illustrate how the public libraries? activities can appear in the light of marketing theory.

Mitt examensarbete behandlar frågeställningen om hur synen på ett bra barnprogram skiljer sig åt hos public service kanalerna, TV4 och övriga kommersiella kanaler? Detta berör också frågor om vem som egentligen avgör vad som är bra barnprogram; är det producenterna eller mottagarna? Jag har valt den här frågeställningen där för att jag har en nyfikenhet på och ett intresse av hur barnprogrammen skiljer sig mellan kanalerna och hur de kommer att se ut i framtiden.Public Service syftar till att ge allmänheten en särskild sorts berikande programutbud inom radio- eller teveverksamhet. Termen public service har flera olika betydelser; Ofta används den för att beteckna de företag som finansieras av någon slags tv-avgift, har ingen eller begränsad reklam och/eller är statligt ägda/kontrollerade.  Det är idag ett turbulent läge för Public service och trycket från de kommersiella kanalerna har sannolikt en inverkan på programverksamheten. Under arbetets gång har det slagit mig vilken stor inverkan producenter och inköpare har på begreppet ?bra? underhållning. Jag har tittat på befintliga barnprogram och gjort en semiotisk analys av dem.

Background: Ill-health related to unhealthy lifestyle is increasing and despite existing knowledge about healthy lifestyle it is difficult to change behaviour. Counselling in the primary health care is often superficial and without critical elements for behaviour change. Aim: The aim of this paper to elucidate interventions for change of lifestyle with respect diet and physical activity. Method: A literature review was carried out and ten scientific articles were analyzed and compiled in two main categories: design of these interventions and participation in them. Results: Education, decision making, goal setting, feedback, social support and follow-up were identified as critical elements for behaviour change.

AbstractTitle:Lean Production in The Public SectorsLevel:Final assignment for Master of Science in Business Administration.Authors:Simon Mårtensson and Ramnpreet Kaur MaanSupervisor:Stig Sörling and Tomas Källquist.Examiner:Lars-Johan ÅgeDate:2015 ? June.Aim:The use of Lean Production in the public sector is increasing and there are still opportunities for improvement that contributes to a higher customer value. According to previous research that has been done, there is a lack of research in the field of Lean production in the public sector. Thus, the aim of this study is to create an understanding of how Lean production as a concept can help to influence employees to work with continuous improvements and customer value in the public sector.Method:The study has a hermeneutic perspective as a starting point where the substance is studied from an operator approach. We have chosen to build our study with the help of deduction starting with a theoretical framework and then go into the empirical framework.

The aim in this project was to spread play in the city and acrossgenerations. My way of approaching this challenge was to explore theborderland between playground equipment and street furniture. Thisopened up many possibilities to afford play in places where playgroundequipment often is excluded.The goal was to create one, or more, furniture with play value. The targetgroup was all vivasious people spending time in the public outdoorspace. Through user studies, a lot of serious playing and a lot of testing,the project resulted in a bench called Rollin´.

The aim of the study was to understand how the family home secretary reasons and thinks and how they express themselves in their actions towards the family home?s biological children. The method used is qualitative semi-structured interviews, involving six family home secretaries from four different municipalities. The results were analyzed with the help of two theories ? the theory of grassroots bureaucracy and the sociology of childhood theory.

"Ekskolan" is a monumental school placed in the middle of the new town area "Mariehäll" in Stockholm, Sweden. 600 pupils between preeschool until year 5 will use the school and its big schoolyard between the townsquare and the public park.The school will be built in massiv wood, both for human reasons with a environment of good, healthy and suitable material for the people and the school activity.The school is seperated in 3 volymes that organises different years; house B and C, and the common facilities: house A. The scool has a cultural profile with rooms for creative activites, documentation and exhibition.To mark the border to the public places that surround the scool and to meet the inclined topography, the schoolhouses will stand on a terrace. The terrace creates rooms between the houses that can be used to utdoor teaching. Likewise, the terrace creates a opened sightline between the public rooms and all the way down to the river..

In efforts to strengthen local economies, business development programs are often a way in which governmental organizations and state affiliates try to facilitate innovation and successful entrepreneurship. There is a mutual interest from both the public and private sector that these funds are put to good use. Extensive research has been conducted with the focus of the general effect of public support programs. However, not much research has been done on what external factors affect the situation for receiving businesses. This study attempts to examine whether one specific such factor, the level of maturity on the markets that the recipients operate in, has a discernible effect on the needs for different types of entrepreneurial support.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the term balanced collection in relation to Swedish laws and the democratic assignment. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto states that libraries are to formulate a policy defining objectives, priorities and services in relation to local community needs. The Swedish Libraries Act, paragraph 7, states that municipalities and counties shall adopt plans for library services. To fulfil our aim we will answer the following questions. By which terms is the democratic assignment visible in Swedish public libraries collection development policies? Is the term balanced collection used in Swedish public libraries collection development policies? If not, are there categories describing balanced collection? Do the terms in Swedish collection development policies differ to the six categories found by Farooq M.

This thesis investigates how energy is used in three public baths today and suggests measures that could reduce the energy demand. The results show that there is a great poteltial for energy savings i public baths, and that it would be interesting to examine some of the proposed measures further..