This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

The purpose of this study was to examine parenthood of young mothers from a professional point of view. The professionals work in a medium-sized city in Sweden and they represent different professions to give a broad perspective of the subject. The questions in the study were: What were the advantages of being a young mother of today and were there any problems with being a young mother, from the professionals perspective? What role did young mothers network and family play, from a professional point of view? From a professional point of view, how well did society handle young parenthood? How do the professionals handle the young mothers they met? Studies with reference to professionals' thoughts and expectations of young mothers were few, therefore the professionals were given a central position in this study. A qualitative method was chosen, for this study.

The purpose of this thesis has been to; based on interviews with four teachers in Stockholm city, get at picture of preschool teacher?s viewpoint on children?s influence in preschool.Research questions: How is the children`s influence looked upon by the teachers in preschool?, In what ways do children?s influence affect their learning, In what ways are the interviewed preschool teachers working with democracy in preschool?To carry out this thesis, I used the qualitative method. In the qualitative method, use is made of the interview method to collect empirical data with interviews. I interviewed four preschool teachers from three different preschools. This thesis is built upon John Dewey?s philosophical thinking as a theoretical base.The result of this thesis shows that all preschool teachers felt that the application of children?s influence in the daily activities, although complicated, is essential in their work.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka fallrelaterad self-efficacy mätt med Falls Efficacy Scale (Swedish version) (FES(S)) samt att beräkna rekommenderade referensvärden för totalpoängen på FES(S) hos friska äldre män och kvinnor indelade i åldersgrupperna 65-75 år samt > 75 år. Vidare syftade studien till att undersöka om det fanns några skillnader i resultatet mellan åldersgrupperna samt mellan män och kvinnor.Undersökningsgruppen bestod av totalt 70 individer över 65 års ålder, varav 45 var kvinnor och 25 var män. Testdeltagarna kontaktades via PRO i Uppsala. Även vänner och bekanta till författarna deltog i studien. Testdeltagarnas fallrelaterade self-efficacy undersöktes med hjälp av instrumentet FES(S), där testdeltagarna fick skatta hur säkra de känner sig på att utföra 13 olika vardagsaktiviteter utan att falla, maximal poäng 130.Resultatet visade att det rekommenderade referensvärdet för totalpoängen på FES(S) blev 124 poäng för kvinnor i åldern 65-75 år och 126 poäng för män i samma ålder.

The parrot is a common symbol, or even cliché, in Western literature, going all the way back fromancient Greece to the present date, and in many a genre. This study reads the oeuvre of the NobelPrize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) as being closely related to these certain traditions andconnotations of for example religion, satire, and speaking nonsense, in his frequent use of parrotsand their symbolic potentials, in his writing. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish a movementin Beckett?s use of parrots, from a more or less traditionally use, to one more philosophicallyprofound.Although the parrot graces us with its presence (or at least may be traced) in almost everywork written by Beckett, from the poem ?Whoroscope? (1930) to How It Is (1961), they are onlymentioned sparsely by his interpreters. Therefore, a brief history of the literary tradition of theparrot will be expounded.

This study focuses on costume as a source of information. By making a case study of an 1880's dress itaims to explore the conservators potential as an investigator and conveyor of the information containedin a costume. Further explanation of this role is made by reference to several statements made by wellknown textile conservators. The paper also explores the different words used to make a new version ofa preserved or inexistant garment, gives an extensive presentation of taking patterns and an insight tothe other methods used for analysing costumes. The case study consists of an investigation of the dressconstruction, during which a pattern is taken, and a literature study of the contemporary fashion, theowner of the dress and the maker of the dress.

 During our education time, we have heard on several occasions how the high changing rate in the society also influences the education area. That changing process mainly originates from the transform that a school underwent, i.e. the decentralization meaning a delegation of responsibility from a national to local government and the particular school. The main idea that started a changing process goes under the slogan ?a school for everyone?.

The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians? views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau?s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians? view of pedagogical work are also made.The method used is qualitative interviews.

There is something magical about shoes?They can create an irresistible desire or be the one thing that we want to get rid of the most at the end of a long day. When people by shoes the chose more out of appearance rather then comfort. The result is a fact. The feet feel tired and soar after a couple of hours and the only thoughts are about the aching feet that firmly object to the way there being treated.

Along with rising energy prices and increasing awareness of environmental issues, the criteria for buildings energy performance have been sharpened through the years. Today, ?passive house? and ?low energy house? are commonly used phrases in the construction industry and is expected to become increasingly common in the future.For houses with well-insulated building envelope the importance of well constructed details increases when minimizing the heat losses. Examples of these details are floor-wall junction and window openings in the wall. In such connections thermal bridges occur, which means that heat more easily is transported out of the building, compared to the rest of the building envelope.This report deals with detail solutions around windows and a comparison between a traditional slab and a foundation from Koljern consisting of foam glass.

A third party access to district heating networks has been proposed in Sweden, to increase the competition on the district heating market. Such third party access could create opportunities for the agricultural sector as an energy producer. This study describes the technical, economical and environmental prerequisites for a farmer cluster to build and run a heating plant, fueled with local wood fuel. The heating plant in the described scenario is 8 MW and will supply a village of 1000 houses, and is fueled with wood chips exclusively. Supplying a heating plant with fuel puts high demands on the logistics, since there need to be a continuous flow of fuel. In the scenario, wood residues from felling and thinning is stored in stacks in the forest, and a few times a year chipped and transported to a storage area at the heating plant. In the study, an estimation of the profitability has been made by estimating the cost of the investment, personnel, operating and maintenance costs and costs for the fuel and ash handling.

Modern societies are generally becoming increasingly capitalist in nature and economies of these societies are thus likely to become more focused on consumer consumption. Advertising plays a vital role in contemporary society where we, as consumers and citizens, are surrounded by it everywhere we look and everywhere we go. This puts pressure on advertisers to become more creative and to explore new ways of marketing their products and services in an already saturated environment. We believe that the added pressure and the already established role of marketing in society make advertisements an interesting and telling object for analysis. This is particularly the case with regards to the concept of selling and marketing products that have qualities that are known to be less than beneficial for our health.This paper analyzes four commercial advertisements marketing beer; a product that we argue has qualities that can be seen as potentially bad for the health of individuals and for societies.

Due to increasing regulations regarding new diesel vehicles particulate matteremissions the new Scania truck, Scania Euro 6, has been equipped with a particulatefilter. This component effectively stores the particles in the exhaust gas but must becleaned in order to prevent itself from clogging. The filter is cleaned through aprocess named regeneration which is a thermodynamic process in which thetemperature of the filter is raised through fuel supplied to the exhaust gas.The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the development of improved controlstrategies of the temperature during the regeneration process through thedevelopment of model-based controllers. These controllers are designed in order tohave good performance in stationary as well as automatic regeneration.In order to develop these model-based controllers a model of the system isconstructed. The model is described as a linear thermodynamic grey-box model withflow varying parameters, showing good results in validation.The model provides a simulation environment during the controller design, which isfocused around the development of linear regulators with the exhaust gas mass flowas a scheduling variable whose size determines controllers? mode of operation.

ABSTRACTBachelor essay in political science by Hanna Richter, spring 2006Supervisor: Mats LindbergTitle: A study of the phenomenon of micronationsThe purpose of this essay is to study the phenomenon of ?micronations?, to describe it to the reader and to discuss why this phenomenon is interesting to study in the field of political science. The questions this essay seeks to answer are:- What are micronations, and which variations are to be found within the phenomenon?- Why are micronations interesting to study in the field of political science?Bary Buzans theory of the nature of the state works as a frame of reference to this investigation of micro ?state-like? units. The phenomenon of micronations has not been investigated by the social sciences in any extent worth mentioning yet.

I Sverige tillverkas betong normalt med glaciofluviala grusavlagringar(naturgrus). På senare år har tillgång på naturgrus blivit starkt begränsade i vissa regioner och man vill av miljöskäl minska förbrukningen av det som återstår. Återvinnig av material som kan ersätta detta är både bra av miljöaspekt samt öppnar väg för produktion av betong med nya egenskaper.Med lättballastbetong avses betong i vilken ballastmaterialet helt eller delvis består av någon typ av lättballast som har en partikeldensitet som är markant mindre än vad som är normalt för normala bergartsmaterial såsom granit, gnejs eller kalksten. Lättballast är porös, dvs innehåller hålrum, och får därför lägre hållfasthet än normalballast. I lättballastbetong bestämmer lättballastpartiklarna många av betongens egenskaper, såsom hållfasthet, elasticitetsmodul och krympning.Examensarbetets inledande del är en state-of-the-art rapport som omfattar tillverkning av lättballastbetong i allmänhet, både i färsk och hårdnade tillstånd, samt dess beståndsdelar med fokus på skumglas som lättballast.