The role-playing game attracts a growing number of practisers. The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine role-playing literature as phenomenon in libraries through librarians´ attitudes. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with eight librarians: one personal interview with two librarians and six e-mail interviews with six librarians at different libraries. The paper starts with a definition of the term ?role-playing game?, its different categories and genres and a description of its background.

ABB is one of the world?s leading engineering companies in power and automation technologiesand their solutions improve performance while lowering environmental impacts for energycompanies and industries. ABB FACTS designs equipment and plants for series and phasecompensation.This thesis has been performed at ABB FACTS on the Mechanical Design (DM) department inVästerås, Sweden. The purpose of the thesis was to develop and design calculations andsimulation tools for ABB FACTS?s standard series capacitor platforms.

The purpose of this study was to develop two types of prediction models for Scots Pine and Norway Spruce. The first type for calculation of the stump diameter under bark the year the tree reached breast height (Dstubh130). The second type for calculation of the annual difference, e.g. the number of growth years between stump height (0.2 m) and breast height (1.3 meters above ground level). The primary thought with these prediction models is to obtain the breast height age in the trees on basis of the number of annual rings at stump.

Sweden have 419 000 km road in the country and about half of these roads is forestroads. The forest road net most important mission is to make it possible to deliver wood from the forest to the industries. With a raw material that is spread over a large area the road network is important. Each year has the forest road network been extended with about 1 700 km new roads. To decide if a new road is to be built different forest road cost estimation models has been used.

This is a qualitative study based on two focus group interviews with a total of six social workers who work with assessing financial aid in two municipalities. The study aims to examine how the social workers experience and handle their ambiguous professional role, on the basis that they are expected to support and control the client. The theoretical framework is the theory about discretion and role theory. The results show that social workers find it difficult to combine these different approaches. Two different groups of strategies that social workers use to manage their professional role have been distinguished, the first is used to combine the different approaches (combination strategies), which are: empathy, to be distinct and to "blame" the organization.

The forecast ability of four well-known exchange rate models for theSwedish krona is tested in this thesis. The models that are tested arethe purchase power parity, the real interest differential model, thesticky-price model and a productivity model. In addition to thebenchmark, the random walk, they are also compared to each other.They are all tested on three different horizons one quarter, two quartersand four quarters. The mean squared forecast error criteria and thedirection of change criteria are used for evaluation of the forecastability. Only in a couple of cases are the forecast ability of thetheoretical based models significant better than the random walk..

BACKGROUND: The isolation facility is an important ward in veterinary hospitals. This is where infectious patients are treated in order to reduce the risk for cross-contamination between the infectious patients and other patients and humans in the hospital. But it can only function in a safe manner as long as adequate precautions for infection control are adhered to. This has shown to be a problem in many isolation facilities in veterinary hospitals in Sweden. AIM: The aim of this paper was to examine which factors that can affect the quality of the infection control in the isolation facility. The aim is also to stress the importance of adequate infection control practices. METHOD: Two interviews were conducted with staff from two veterinary hospitals.

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?.

The aim of this essay is to find out how different factors influence the occupational role in a rehabilitation garden. The study is based on two qualitative interviews with and shadowing of the gardeners in the rehabilitation gardens of Alnarp and Gröna Rehab in Gothenburg. The result shows that the main factors that influence the occupational role is the gardener?s background, the garden/place, the participants, the team and the possibilities for development. The occupational role appears to consist of several different roles; the team-worker, the activity and project manager, the source of inspiration, the educationalist, the informer, the therapist and the fellow human being.

A debate in finance is whether a random investment gives the same return as carefully choose and valuing an amount of shares to invest in. Stock valuating Stock valuation is often done by fundamental valuation models, based on the company's underlying character, which tries to put a correct price on the stock. Today there are several different valuation models that can be used for this purpose. Since valuation models are only mathematical, equity research is underpinned by more subjective assessments about the company and its future.The purpose with this thesis is to describe which valuation models that are used by professional stock analysts, but also to see if the reliability on the equity research is affected by the used model to valuing the company. Furthermore, we want to see if the job that?s been done to understand the company, measured by the equity research quality, impact the reliability on the equity research.In this thesis, we have, to achieve our purpose, conducted a quantitative content analysis of 164 equity research done by professional analysts at firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. With basis in previous research, we have developed a method for determining the valuation model that is used in the equity research, the reliability on the equity research and a framework for assessing the quality of the equity research.In the theoretical framework the valuation models involved in our study are described, previous research on the reliability on the equity research and their practical use.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the lunchtime from a language development perspective. It will compare two preschools with different ways of organizing mealtimes and observe the conversations between teachers and children. It will also study the ways in which a meal is served and how it affects the conversations. In one of the preschools the children eat in a proper dining room where the food is served as a buffet while in the other preschool the children eat in the preschoolarea and the food is served in bowls on the tables. I also want to investigate how two of these preschool teachers reflect on the mealtimes as part of the language development plan.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relation between different kinds ofremedial teaching models, not specifically addressed to pupils with physicaldisabilities, in the Swedish school context, and to describe and analyze theobjectives related to each model. Research focus was held on professionaldescriptions of school related problems and arguments for different kind of models,but also on objectives formulated in Swedish school policy. As theoretical toolswere used discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. The concept ofalienation as it appears throughout Foucault?s work was also used to understand howdifferent knowledge fields as education, special education, psychology and medicinedivide themselves from each other.

Modelica is a multi-domain and equation-based modeling language. Modelica is based on object-oriented principles and non-causal modeling. The language is constructed to facilitate reuse and decompose models. The models and the modellibrary can modified to design a new nonlinear components.Object-oriented modeling is an excellent way to analyze and study large complex heterogeneous physical systems. The object-oriented modeling approach build on reusing and decomposition of models and non-causal modeling.Modeling physical systems often leads to a DAE system with index 2 or 3.

This thesis aims to analyse relations between the risk of Francisella in endemic areas and environmental variables. The thesis also discusses relations between occurrences of Tularemia and meteorological factors. The analysis resulted in several significant models that explained the occurrence of Francisella. These models can however only be applied to the year 2004 since there were too few test performed the other years, therefore no comparisons could be made. Another conclusion was that the relative humidity was significally higher in the year 2003, the same year as the occurrences of Tularemia was at its peak. .

At Forsmark nuclear power plant the rather old-fashioned software COPTA is used in containment safety analysis. There exists a desire within the organisation to introduce a more modern software with ability to more detailed modeling and increased usability.The goal of this thesis was to evaluate the software APROS in containment safety analysis. APROS models describing one of the containments at Forsmark NPP have been developed. Two simulations of typical containment incidents, one of them a large pipe break, have been made where containment safety parameters such as pressure and temperature are studied. Results are analyzed and verified against results from corresponding COPTA models.