Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

Systematic quality work in preschool ? How preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work The purpose of this study was to investigate how Swedish preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work. All Swedish preschools are required to work systematically with quality. This involves several steps that follow each other in a specific order. It includes following up, documenting and evaluating preschool activities.

This master thesis deals with problems in the arc length control in Pulsed MIG/MAG Welding. The main problem is that it is not possible to measure the arc length. In the present solution the voltage over both the electrode and the arc represents the arc length. To improve the arc length control a model of the electrode melting has been built. One output from the model is the voltage over the electrode and with this voltage together with the measured voltage it is possible to calculate the voltage over just the arc.

The increasing public concern regarding the government?s priorities in spending public resources puts pressure on public organisations to address quality issues in their practice. In United Kingdom both BRTF (Better Regulation Task Force) (BIS, 2005b) and the Hampton report (BIS, 2005a) highlighted management and quality problems in public organisations in UK. These reports revealed obstacles within institutions? intent to offer recommendations and appropriate solutions for agencies working with legal enforcement and control.

This study aims to examine the effect management control systems have on which goals health centers prioritize. The management control systems of one privately owned and one publicly owned health center have been studied through a qualitative case study. Robert Simons (1995) framework with four levers of control (diagnostic control systems, interactive control systems, belief systems and boundary systems) has been used to structure the study. For both health centers we found a conflict of interest mainly between the diagnostic control system and the beliefs system, where the diagnostic control system is biased towards quantitative goals and the beliefs system is mainly biased towards qualitative goals. However, despite the unbalanced levers of control the studied health centers have been able to reach a well functioning compromise between quantitative and qualitative goals..

Locus of control och självkänslaEn jämförelse mellan elit- och icke elitidrottareHelén BlomstrandBesitter individen en hög inre locus of control anser denne attindividen själv är ansvarig för valen denne gör i livet, medan en högyttre locus of control innebär det motsatta. Syftet med studien varbland annat att se om elit- och icke elitidrottare skiljde sig gällandelocus of control; får elitidrottarna högre förvärvade än traitbaseradeinre attityder gällande självkänsla och locus of control, än ickeelitidrottare, har locus of control samband med självkänsla. Enenkätundersökning genomfördes på 82 idrottare varav 42elitidrottare. Resultatet visade att elitidrottarna uppvisade signifikanthögre resultat gällande inre locus of control än icke elitidrottarnasamt att det fanns könsskillnader då männen uppvisade högre värdengällande en inre work locus of control. Resultatet indikerar även attbassjälvkänsla har ett positivt samband med locus of control.Diskussionen fördes kring om en högre inre locus of control ledertill bättre idrottsliga resultat samt kritisk granskning av gällandeuppsats.Keywords: locus of control, external and internal, athletes, self-esteem.

Sahlgrenska Academyat University of GothenburgDepartment of internal medicine and clinical nutritionAbstractTitle: Does omega-3 mitigate skin symptoms in psoriatic patients? ? A systematic review about the effects of supplementationAuthor: Anita Borgmästars and Sara LinderSupervisor: Mette AxelsenExaminer: Anna WinkvistProgramme: Dietician study programme, 180/240 ECTSType of paper: Examination paper, 15 hpDate: May 22, 2012Background: Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease with high prevalency. Its treatment is time-consuming and associated with many side effects. Therefore alternative forms of treatment, among them omega-3 supplementation, have been investigated. Omega-3 is a family of polyunsaturated fatty acids whose metabolites participate in the regulation of inflammatory reactions in tissues and may therefore have a positive effect on skin symptoms in patients with psoriasis.Objective: To determine if omega-3 supplementation has a beneficial effect on skin symptoms in psoriasis compared to omega-6 supplementation by rating the evidence quality in available studies.Search strategy: The literature search was conducted in the databases PubMed, Scopus and Amed.

This essay examines the differences between the mediation practices concering youth crime in the swedish cities of Kalmar and Växjö. The analysis are made with the use of quality interviews which we have linked together with the three theories of Social Control Theory, Restorative Justice and Transformative Mediation. There after we have compared the results with one and another. Results show that there both similarities and differences, both in the theoretical aspects and in the organisations, for example the coopiration with the prosecutors and the police..

AbstractThe aim of this review was to describe how quality of life is experienced among patients with diabetes type 2. Literature search was made in Medline and the keywords used were ?diabetes mellitus type 2? and ?quality of life?. Twenty studies were examined and categorized into four sections: Quality of life during complications due to diabetes type 2, quality of life during various treatments, quality of life during depression and quality of life and aspects in relation to the individual as well as social aspects. The designs of the studies were of a varying kind: randomized controlled studies, comparative studies, correlative studies and descriptive studies.

The purpose of this thesis is to find means of control that secure cost efficiency regarding the accommodation for the employees on missions abroad of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Today the ministry?s cost for the employees? rented housing is 100 million SEK and there is a need of improvement in the control of these costs. A work method for organizational development will be used in order to reach the findings presented in the thesis. First we study the strengths and weaknesses in today?s control system.

This thesis is dealing with the programs of control regarding deceit and quality assurance within the Swedish social insurance administration in Skåne, the years 2002-2005. In 2005 the Swedish National Audit Office released a report regarding the lack of measures towards deceit and fraud, and the lack of quality in the data for decision making within the administration. The questions to be addressed are why the administration does not make up to the demands regarding quality and measures towards deceit that the government and The National Audit Office demands. The main source for data has been interviews with workers within the administration and annual reports from public authorities. To understand and be able to explain the problems within the administration the theory by Michael Lipsky regarding street-level bureaucrats is used.

The purpose of this study was to examine if there was a relation between birth order, gender and locus of control. There where 162 participants in the study, 44 men, 115 women. Birth order was coded into three levels. There where no significant differences between birth order and locus of control. The result showed that female participants where more external when it came to locus of control.

I denna studie har undersökts personlighet och Health Locus of Control hos 56 kvinnor och män i åldrarna 18 till 65 år, där 30 var svenskar och 26 var tyskar. Undersökningens frågeställning var: Är en eller fler personlighetsdimensioner i Fem-Faktor-modellen relaterade till i vilken utsträckning en individ har Internality, Powerful others eller Chance Health Locus of Control. En NEO-PI enkät och ett Multi dimensionella Health Locus of Control-skalan-formulär administrerades. Resultatet från undersökningen kunde påvisa en signifikant korrelation mellan Openess to Experience och Powerful Others Health Locus of Control samt Conscientiousness och Powerful Others Health Locus of Control. En signifikant skillnad mellan svenskar och tyskar beträffande Powerful Others kunde också påvisas.

Background Satisfaction of life and wellbeing is shown to be important when the quality of life is to be understood. The nurse has a significant role in the care of the patient and in his/her experience of life. Aim The purpose of this study is to examine the quality of life, from a nurse perspective. Method The text analysis was carried out with qualified attempts, of a book, "Quality of life a challenge for the nurse" (in Swedish) by T. Rustoen, a nurse who also worked as a teacher in Norway.