Partnering is a collaboration method where the contractor and the client work together, based on a mutual trust towards each other and with a common goal for the project. The method originates from the United States where it was early adapted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It later spread internationally where the United Kingdom and Denmark were early in Europe to see the potential with partnering, to help aid with the issues they were having where construction projects kept running late, going over budget and lacked in quality. By using partnering you can achieve a shorter building time, improved work relationships and enhanced efficiency and cost effectiveness.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar library projects in the United States of America.

It seems like Swedish municipalities are dominated by beliefs that all citizen participation is good for the development of local democracy. A critic of this certainty is rising among Swedish scholars of political science. However, a critic with an ambition of such generalization is harsh. Different democratic projects contents different qualities and thereby diverse problems in the democratic process. If these democratic problems within the process can be recognized, a deeper understanding can be found and in the prolongation a strengthening of the democracy.This essay examines the democratic process of Lomma municipality's democratic project of citizen participation.

Background: Investors use companies? credit ratings as a base in their buy and sell decisions. Companies? credit ratings are also used as indicators of safety in the legislation. This means that credit rating agencies have an important role in the society because they communicate the company?s credit rating to investors and other actors in the society.

Diet and lifestyle are closely interrelated and believed to have a significant influence on four major public diseases - cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension and obesity, but also affects functional deficiencies like gluten- and lactose intolerance. Health added-value foods are thought to reduce health-related risks or delay the onset of these major diseases. Therefore, interest among scientists, researchers and the public in general has been growing remarkably over the last decade regarding these special foods. The Swedish market seems to be a good target for health added-values food. However, as there are many risks and cost factors involved for companies to enter the market or invest in R&D, it is important to take a step back and analyze the current market situation.

This study focuses on the use of animals in social work from the perspective of social workers. The purpose of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of animal assisted social work and how social workers view the integration of animals in various fields of social work. The research is based on a qualitative method and four semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers. The theories incorporated in the study are Attachment Theory and Sense of Coherence (SOC).The following results are presented: Social workers are considered to have a more comprehensive understanding of clients compared to their associates who do not hold a degree in Social Work.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the participation of immigrant organizations to the partnerships in the Equal program in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the significance of the participation for the organizations and its impact on them. The point of view of the participant organizations has been object of study through interviews with the persons who, on behalf of the organizations, have been in charge for the work with Equal. Interviews have been conducted with people representing 10 of the 21 immigrant organizations that have been identified among the Swedish Equal partners. Many organizations have experienced that the participation has strengthen the awareness of target groups about their needs and their possibilities.

The purpose of this thesis is to identify the factors that drive efficiency and effectiveness in technical development projects performed at A?F?s department of product development. In addition to identifying and analyzing these factors, the thesis also analyzes what needs to be taken in to account in order to implement a measurement system that is able to both monitor and control the identified factors.The thesis has been performed in a qualitative manner. It is based on interviews with people from several different technological companies, within different lines of business, all of which are customers to A?F?s department of product development.The results show that there are seven critical factors for project efficiency and effectiveness.

Today  Real  estate  companies  face  the  challenge  where  extensive  renovations  on  existinghousing built before 1980 must be performed. Conditions have changed and the housing need performance-­?enhancing measures that meet today's quality. With a current renovation rate,  it  would  take  30  years  to  meet  the  renovation  needs.  The  renovation  rate  must therefore rise dramatically, which requires the real estate companies to act consistently in accordance with commercial principles and in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible way.The  paper  discusses  renovation  strategies  in  four  municipal  housing  companies  in  the Stockholm  suburbs.  The  report  includes  surveys  of  four  ongoing  renovation  projects; Fastighets AB Förvaltaren in Sundbyberg project Hundloken 3, Stiftelsen Signalisten in Solna project Ritorp, Sollentunahem in Sollentuna project Svalgången och Väsbyhem in Upplands Väsby project Dragonvägen. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the practices of redevelopment projects.

The conservation of great apes faces many challenges, one of which is the threat of infectious disease outbreaks. Zoonotic transmission of respiratory diseases from humans to wild great apes has recently been confirmed. Since respiratory disease is one of the major causes of death in both gorillas and chimpanzees, this gives reason for major concern. Little is known about the risks of disease transmission from humans to great apes in natural environments, and there is a need for systematic risk evaluation. Researchers, conservation staff and tourists spend time in very close proximity of wild great apes, sometimes during long time periods, which poses a potential risk of disease spillover. However, the presence of researchers and tourists has been shown to decrease the risk of poaching, making the matter increasingly complex.

The aim with this thesis is to examine how childrens librarians apprehend and use the nationally initiated reading project Bokjuryn as an instrument in their work. The main question is as follows: How does Bokjuryn work related to the way public libraries pass on literature? Two questions are asked: How does the childrens librarians use Bokjuryn as an instrument and how do they motivate their work with it? and How do the childrens librarians view the reading project Bokjuryn as a method of passing on literature? The study is based on qualitative interviews with five childrens librarians. As a theoretical starting-point Jofrid Karner Smidt´s work about mediation of literature has been used. A model has been created and used based on Louise Limbergs analyses of the differences between school libraries and public libraries to analyse the result of the interviews together with other literature.

Many research reports mention the fact that a huge number of all system development projects never reach a successful ending; with other words never fulfil formulated goals. By identifying and forming success factors (and in some aspect risk factors) that the project manager in practice can use, this study may be seen as a step in the direction towards minimising the high number of failed system development projects. The purpose of this research report is to investigate how a system development project, where the development process is based on a specific development or process model (in this case the Waterfall model), can and should be driven. I aim to clarify what is demanded of a project leader for the specific development process and give an account for which eventual leadership qualities that can be well suited for given situation in relation to the need for technical competence. Among other things the project manager should inspire confidence, drive, be a decision maker, engage and own some form of basic knowledge in the field of system development.

More than half of the implemented IT-projects go over budget, deadline or simply fail. The processes in an IT-project requires technical competence to be present among the project participants to ensure the achievement of business goals and to make organisations competitive. The success of an IT-project largely depends on the project manager which makes it interesting to further investigate what impact the project manager?s technical competence has on the project. Previous research shows differing opinions whether technical competence is considered important for the project manager to be successful or not.

The market of today consist of products/services who resemble each other, the differences are small. Their for it?s necessary for the companies to provide added values to the product so it will stand out from the rest of the products and lead to purchase. A well used strategy in the fashion industry is marketing with celebrities, this is considered successful because it brings attention and strengthening to the brand. Because of this, the strategy also branch out to other industries, but the question is if it?s as successful there? There?s also a serious down-side with the strategy and that is that there?s a great risk with using celebrities.

The advantages with product placement in blogs compared to traditional media is shown in earlier empirical findings where consumers found blog posts more credible and informative than a corresponding article in a web paper. It can therefore be argued that the informal structure and personal tonality of the blog reinforces the effects of product placement on brand attitude and intention to buy as the consumer has no persuasion knowledge and does not detect the rewriting of the product as commercial.This paper?s overall aim is to provide concrete implications for how to manage product placement on fashion blogs. The purpose of the essay is therefore to investigate the communicative effects of product placement in fashion blogs as well as to examine if a revelation of commercial interest behind a blog posts about a certain brand effects the consumers? attitude towards the blog and/or brand attitude and intention to buy.