The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the female reader of science fiction literature, a genre by tradition dominated by men. Through qualitative interviews with seven female science fiction readers, the relation between the reading and the readers? lives, as well as their concepts of the science fiction genre and the community of science fiction readers, was examined. The main theoretical framework used for the analysis was Yvonne Hirdman?s gender theory, Judith Butler?s concept of identity and Louise M.

What is the European Union (EU) and which countries should be part of it in the future? These questions became topical during the first part of the 21st century when political and geographical changes hasten the need to decide the nature of the European cooperation. In the European Constitution, that never come into force, the European values that a key role but was taken away in the succeeding Lisbon Treaty. Nevertheless EU continues to expand, recently to the East and non-European countries asTurkey are now on the ?waiting-list?.

I have made a research about two different methods for introducing small children to Nursery School/Kindergarten. I choose to do this as I have found very little about this in the literature we have studied during my education to become a pre-school teacher.This period in the life of very small children and their parents is a big change in their daily life. The more traditional way to start pre-school is to do it very gradually during two weeks, the two-week method. This means that the parents visit the pre-school together with their child for a very short time, about one hour the first day. After one week they leave their child with the staff for about an hour and at the end of that week they try to leave it full time (6-8 hours).

The purpose of this thesis has been to explore the topic of business simulation from a theoretical foundation in social constructivism and theories concerning leadership as the management of meaning. The most important findings are that business simulation can be used for strategical leadership by management to create a common vision in the organisation members, which affects their perception of the business and the decisions and actions they make, which in turn can lead to a more efficient organisation that becomes better at meeting set goals. This can be viewed in different ways from different theoretical viewpoints: as inducing targeted changes in mental models to create changes in decision making and actions; as a secondary socialization process where the vision of management is externalized as a business simulation that is in turn internalized by the organisation members that participate in the business simulation, or as a way to frame and define the reality of the organisational members which creates a shared reference point against which a feeling of organisation and direction can emerge. In the future, business simulations may become increasingly used by organizations to create a common vision or to communicate a new decision to the organization members..

Making accurate predictions of private consumption expenditures is a difficult task. This thesis examines if consumer confidence can be used to forecast consumption. Using regression analysis, the link between consumer confidence and private consumption expenditures is analyzed for Sweden between the years 1994 and 2005. Two different models are estimated. In the first model consumption is regressed only on consumer confidence, while model two is extended to contain more variables.

The study was conducted in Jönköping County Chamber of fibrillation and is about change and improvement of process modeling technology. The process for treating patients with fibrillation is in the need to evolve and improve. In order to develop the care they needed a current state description which usually is made with the traditional process modeling tool.Many scientists and health professionals is in the opinion that this technology gives a too rigid image to describe the care processes. It also does not sufficiently take into account the human aspects. This reasoning suggests that the process modeling technology in healthcare is in the need to develop multiple perspectives.

Young men who commit sexual abuse is a complex topic. This study is based on litterature on the subject and the material is processed through a qualitative content analysis. The study aims to study how the litterature describes the reasons why young men commit sexual abuse. It also aims to explore what is described to be effective treatment of young men who committed sexual abuse. The study found that most of the young men who commit sexual abuse comes from families where violence and psycohological abuse occurs. Many have themselves been victims of sexual abuse.

Apple has since their launch of the Iphone series created a billion dollar business with the market place Appstore. Third-party apps have disrupted the mobile industry, attracted a high number of developers and set the standard for the industry. Despite success, this market has yet not been the topic of any academic study, a fact that makes this thesis important. Under the assumption that apps can be regarded as a service, traditional service marketing theories have been applied with the research goal to map existing business models, evaluate revenue potential and understand best practices of marketing techniques. A series of qualitative interviews with representatives from the difference business models, backed by secondary data describing the domain shows how the Appstore has evolved over time and which marketing practices that appear successful.

The aim of the study is to examine a book used as level-based teaching material, Denmagiska kulan (Wänblad, 2011), to analyse the progression within and between thedifferent levels, A, B and C, intended for use in grade 1. The material is designed so thatpupils at different levels in their reading development can share the same literature.Another aim is to study the connection between illustrations and text. This literaturestudy is based on both a qualitative and a quantitative method of analysis. Thequalitative method applies a readability analysis with the focus on the graphic form andthe language of the text. The quantitative method measures the LIX (readability index)of the texts.

I detta kandidatarbete skapas en animation för att visualisera användarinstruktioner för en balpress. Förberedelser utförs i 3D-CADprogramvaran Geomagic Design 2014 innan arbetet med animeringen påbörjas i programmet SimLab Composer Animation. I förberedelserna rensas modellerna och modifieras. Modeller som saknas skapas. I detta förslag på visualisering av ett moment i användning av balpressen är i syfte att underlätta för brukaren hur den snabbt kan använda maskinen.

The concepts of environmental scanning and Business Intelligence have gained increased interest over the last years in a number of different organisational contexts. The research in this field has mainly been dealing with methods and issues regarding organisation but the aim of environmental scanning, the forming of new perspectives, has been largely ignored. The purpose of this thesis is to study how Swedish joint-stock banks put environmental scanning and Business Intelligence into practice. First a literature study is made to create a background and to explain the different conceptions. Then I describe the different functions of the different services in Swedish joint-stock banks.

The purpose of this study was to examine leadership in the public sector based on leadership models, organizational factors, conditions and health of employees. The study was divided into sub-study one and two. In sub-study one the design was an observational study using cross sectional design in which 67 first line managers in the public sector answered a survey about conditions and leadership models. Sub-study two was an observational study using case-control design focusing on a health promoting leadership intervention in the municipal sector. Two semi-structured interviews and 41 surveys were collected.

Portable IT devices such as laptops, smart phones and computer tablets are becoming ever more ubiquitous. At the same time, the population of the Western world is growing older, with aging bringing about changes with regards to individuals' physical and mental capabilities. These facts raises important questions about how well suited these devices are for use by elderly people. This study focuses on the cognitive aspects of the devices' usability, using the concept of mental models to analyze the users' understanding of a computer tablet. It also draws upon theory of graphical user interfaces in its analyses.

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 public libraries in Sweden.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate whether exhibitions and silent pedagogy can be used to develop more inspiring environments in the public library. Silent pedagogy is a term from the field of museum education describing the silent communication with visitors that takes place in exhibitions through introduction and orientation, layout and installation, as well as signage. In the 1980s, articles in a Swedish library magazine discussed the pedagogical importance of library exhibits and how they make the patrons aware of the library?s resources. This led us to museum education and a desire to investigate whether its theories were transferrable to the library context.