The aim of this study is to investigate ordinary readers' evaluation of quality in literature. The main issue is which criteria ordinary grown-up readers use when they are defining their likes and dislikes in literature. The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six readers, two men and four women, between 21 and 59 years of age. The study is hermeneutic. Since theoretical works concerning evaluation of literature among ordinary readers are sparse, the philosopher of arts and religion Hugo A.

Global Software Development (GSD) is based on a geographical distance where teams are spread throughout the world. The related research have for a long time addressed the challenges presented by geographical distances. GSD is basically a necessity for many businesses to use in order to reduce development costs, reduce production time and to maintain high quality. The study aims to investigate the relationship between the reality of a specific maintenance project. Thus, our research question: How do distributed maintenance teams experience temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distances? To achieve the purpose of the study, we chose to perform a case study of a global consulting company which recently started a new system maintenance project.

The purpose of this study was to examine earnings quality and earnings management in U.S. ex-post failed firms. A quantitative study was made, using the Modified Jones Model, to identify abnormal accruals up to six years before bankruptcy. 9 003 continuing firms and 187 bankrupt firms, active sometime between 1990 and 2010, were examined. The study concludes that U.S.

The purpose of this study is to provide a longitudinal examination, within grocery retailing, of four marketing tools and their impact on enhancing customer loyalty. The study examines whether the relationship between the four marketing tools and customer satisfaction has a positive effect on attitude and behavior loyalty. The findings from this study show that the marketing tools have not helped enhancing loyalty between 2004 and 2007. Between these years, service quality has the most affect on loyalty. Self-scanning as an effective marketing tool could be questioned, the relation in this study is not supported.

The vegetation?s impact on erosion control is widely explored, even though research? results are scattered where it suggests a both positive and negative relationship between roots and erosion tendency. Research has measured the roots? impact on erosion by many different methods, hence the aim of this study is to offer a clearance of what factors play an important role in the choice of appropriate species controlling river bank erosion. I have therefore studied 17 articles concerning vegetation and erosion control, which were found in different databases such as: Web of Knowledge, Biological Sciences, Academic Search Elite and Google Scholar.

Today all buildings contain some form of home automation. It might be heating controlled by athermostat or motion detectors controlling outdoor lighting.This paper,The Intelligent House, deals with the planning of a house in Kiruna, in the north ofSweden and further immerses itself in home automation or intelligent control in single-familyhomes. The house has been entirely planned, from layout to structural design and plumbing.The purpose of the paper has been to investigate the possibilities in home automation in singlefamilyhomes and to choose a suitable home automation system for the house being planned.The system has been designed and the costs and energy savings have been calculated.The system chosen for the house is called KNX and is the largest system for home automation inSweden. It is used to control heating, ventilation, lighting and alarm systems in the house. Is hasbeen found that KNX is very expensive and that the amount of energy, possible to save in thehouse, using the system, is relatively small.

By identifying effects that a buyout-firm has on management control systems in its portfolio companies, the aim of this thesis is to explain how such effects differs between the companies and finally to explain why the effects differs even though the companies are owned by the same buyout-firm. The study is conducted as a qualitative case study based on interviews with representatives from the studied buyout-firm and three of its portfolio companies.By analyzing the empirical findings with frameworks and theories within management control systems and value creation, we cannot only identify effects that are common for all portfolio companies but we can also observe differences between the portfolio companies.The identified effects that are common for all portfolio companies are: increased internal reporting burden, increased perceived risk of getting laid off among managers and co-workers and replacement of the board immediately after acquisition.The effects that are observed only for two portfolio companies are: increased focus on short-term planning, higher financial targets, replacement of company management upon acquisition and moving of decision authorities to higher organizational levels. Differences are observed although the portfolio companies are owned by the same buyout-firm due to: differences in management and co-workers equity stake in the portfolio companies, differences in business complexity and differences in planned exit-horizon..

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social workers who worked with financial assistance perceived their work situation and the impact work-related stress had on their health and quality of work. Further, the study intended to find out if they felt that they received support from their employer that could prevent stress-related sick leave. The following two research questions were to be answered: In what way does work-related stress affect social workers? health and job quality according to their own experience? What kind of support and help experienced social workers were available within their organization? To receive answers to the questions semi-structured interviews with five social workers were conducted, analyzed and interpreted. The results showed that when social workers have a heavy case burden, high stress and a risk of deteriorated job quality occurred.

This report is a description of a developed educational simulator over rail vehicles and its components. The simulator is a hardware-based prototype over a door system on rail vehi- cles. System specialists and technicians will use the prototype. The Simulator should give the user a technical demonstration on how components work in a door system. The proto- type consists of motor, switch, relay and sensor.

The purpose of this study was to understand what the care recipients considering as care quality in their long-term eldercare. Our intention has been to contribute a bit to the development of the care work. Previous studies show that user surveys are carried out regularly but there is very few studies that are based on care recipients own opinions and experiences. The main questions in the study have been to examine what is considered as good elder care from a user perspective. Even to understand the characteristics of a good meeting with the care staff and also examine how the elder care in Nybro municipality can improve.

The purpose of this study was to examine people's experiences of self-medication with cannabis in relation to post-traumatic stress disorder and professions? opinions of cannabis for medical use. The study focuses on norms and values as well as its impact on individuals. A qualitative approach was used with thematically open interview questions, in order to gain an insight into the interviewees? reality and their experiences.

Today the individual ventilated cage system (IVC-system) is the most commonly used system when housing rodents. IVC systems are designed to control both supply and exhausted air at cage level, as well as temperature and relative humidity in the cages. This creates an optimal environment for the mouse and at the same time a protection against the risk of cross-infection between cages and the outside environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health and welfare for two different strains of laboratory mice (NMRI nude mice and C57BL/6NCrl mice) in three different kinds of IVC-systems; Arrowmight, Allentown and Tecniplast. 108 mouse pups from each strain (in total 216 mice) were selected after weaning at an age of three weeks and tested during 5 weeks.

Forestry is an important industry in Sweden, with clear-cut as the most commonly used method for harvesting. Here the long-term impact of clear-cut on lake water quality (dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrogen, phosphorus and pH) has been investigated, based on 23 lakes sampled during autumn. Data for additional 15 lakes sampled for the Swedish monitoring program were also used. Lakes were classified as 5, 25, 40 and 60 year based on data of the forest age in the catchment, gathered from the Swedish national forest inventory. Clear-cut lakes were classified as 5 years (>20% of the catchment clear-cut during the last 10 years).

The aim of this study was to describe how adolescents experiences their quality of life, and tocompare if there are any differences in how they experiences their QOL depending on wherethey live, big town or smaller town. The aim was also to examine how adolescentsexperienced their schooling. The study is empirically, quantitative with a descriptive andcomparative design. To measure quality of life a tried and tested instrument ? LifeSatisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ) was used.

This report presents the results of a thesis in which the department PL Hus at Grontmij AB isstudied. The study has been done in order to locate problem areas in order to streamline andimprove the quality of working. The study was done by an engineering student from theDepartment of Industrial Management at KTH on behalf of Grontmij AB. The project extendedover a period of 20 weeks during spring 2011.In addition to the Department itself has two project managers in two different projects beenfollowed. The method used has been participant observation and was used to be able to comeclose to reality and thus find problem areas where there are opportunities for development.Validation was made through comments and opinions from workers at Grontmij AB, afterreading the reports analysis.Based on a system and holistic approach has parallels been drawn to the production systems suchas TPS (Toyota Production System) and lean production.