New method for measuring road quality- A statisticalstudy of the relationship between road quality andsocioeconomic development A new tool with implications for road maintenance has the potential to yield statistical data for road quality in a large number of regions. This thesis investigates the possibility to develop a method, from this data, for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development.The thesis is essentially divided into two parts. Part one looks to qualitatively establish the link between socioeconomic development and road quality and the second part focuses on how to develop a method for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development. A method was devised using categorical data and a multinomial regression model. This method provides a comprehensive overview of the complex relationship between a variety of different variables.

Among young adults and especially women, psychological issues are common phenomena in the society such as depression, anxiety and stress. Research has shown that physical activity can be a complement for anti-depressant medication. The aim of this review is to examine previous research to find out how physical activity can provide positive effects on overall mood state in particular young women's psychological health. The results of this review is that there are support in the literature of young women that physical activity may enhance mood in studies of depression and anxiety symptoms and small support for the effects on reducing stress. Physical activity with both high intensity and low intensity has shown to have positive effects on depression and anxiety, but the physical activity has to be regular for long-term effects.

This essay examines the indirect effects of the local strength of the Swedish Democrats on refugee acceptance in the Swedish municipalities. With statistical methods this essay has aimed to investigate if such effects exist and by using statistical data from three periods of time - 2002, 2006 and 2010 ? the investigation has been able to measure effects over time. Based on former research and reasonable expectations the hypothesis for the essay claims that the Swedish Democrats has got an indirect effect upon the refugee acceptance. With the statistical analyses made, the essay is able to conclude that the strength of the Swedish Democrats in municipality elections as well as the change of this strength between the elections does have a negative effect upon refugee acceptance in the Swedish municipalities.

 ABSTRACT  Nature of essay:                C-level, 15 pointsPage count:                        47Title:                                   The last way out?-A qualitative study of psychiatric staff and service users attitude to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).Author:                              Hanna Nilsson Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) of professionals and service users within a user organization ? Riksförbundet för social och mental hälsa. (RSMH)Questions: Does the psychiatric staff believe that there are preconceptions about electroconvulsive therapy? What motivates service user?s choice of electroconvulsive therapy? Do the psychiatric staff and the service users think that the positive effects of ECT can outweigh the possible negative side effects?Method: Qualitative study. The study is based on interviews with psychiatric staffthat works with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and with services users who have received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).Results: The result showed that the psychiatric staff feels that preconceived ideas occur about the treatment of ECT, and that it is affecting their approach to work.Service users motivate their choice by how bad they felt under the depression, and that ECT was their only choice left, that´s why psychiatric staff suggested the treatment.The positive effects of ECT outweighed the possible negative side effects because life is something you value higher than any memory loss and when there is currently no treatment having a similar efficiency.Keywords: Electroconvulsive therapy, Attitudes, Side effects, Experience, Patients, Professionals.

A large part of the time losses in production in modern manufacturing industry are a cause of unplanned interruptions in production. In this essay we have studied the effects of an unplanned interruption in production. The study was performed during one month on a press production line at Volvo Cars Body Components (VCBC) in Olofström. The effects of the interruptions have been studied on the basis of two perspectives of the environment of the production. The study started at the level of automation and was mainly done as a survey of the unplanned interruptions in production.

The overarching purpose of the study was to examine the effects of infant massage and to put these effects incontext with mother ? child attachment. The intention was also to study whether these effects have any relevancefor social work. This was accomplished by studying earlier research, theory and laws but also through interviewswith mothers who have followed through a course in infant massage. The main questions of the study was: Afterthe completion of the course and after using the massage technique at home, does the mother experience that thebond with their child is influenced by the technique and are the mothers more apprehensive of their child?ssignals? Has the mothers observed any signals from their infants during the massage and if so what has beentheir reaction? Does the mothers experience that the massage has provided any physiological effects? Has thecompletion of the course provided the mothers with knowledge that?s had an effect in their ways of parenting? Inwhat way does the earlier research, reports and laws deal with the benefits and risks of a secure or insecureattachment, and can the quality of the attachment have any meaning in the social work? A qualitative approachwas chosen with respondent-interviews.

Shopping malls have been growing in numbers during the last few decades. As an effect, consumers are increasingly placing a greater amount of their purchases under one roof. The problem is that stores within these malls have to fight for the consumers' attention in competition with all the other stores. Thus, making consumers noticing their store is critical for success. Creating attention through floor advertising could be a potential way of doing so.

The blog has become a widely discussed subject, but while marketers do invest in blogs, there is little evidence on the how the blog works as a marketing tool. Therefore, we thought it would be interesting to create a greater understanding of the blog's potential communication effects. To demonstrate the potential of the blog in comparison with more traditional media, we decided to compare the communication effects achieved by a blog with those achieved by an online magazine. We pursued an experiment where we exposed an identical text about a brand to respondents in seven blogs and in seven online papers and measured the resulting communication effects in terms of attitudes and intentions towards the exposed brand. The quantitative study showed that the blog in some basic aspects works as a more traditional media; when the consumer forms positive attitudes toward a text in a blog, the attitude spills over to the attitude toward the brand, with higher buying and w-o-m intentions as a consequence.

Since some years Linköping has invested in biogas production, mainly from offal's, residuals from food industry and manure. The municipality goes for biogas in the local traffic and in all transportation. It is also possible for private car owners to run their cars on biogas. The purpose of this essay is to perform a cost-benefit analysis and examine if the project has been beneficial from a social point of view. The effects have been identified, measured and monetarily valued. The essay is limited to include the year of 2006 only.

A crisis situation that has been more commonly occurred in the industry of conveniencegoods lately is the product related crises which thereby has become a challenge for everymarketer to handle. As the negative publicity tend to enlarge the crisis and spread to thecategory as a whole, it's not only important to have a crisis management to handle crisesconcerning the company itself. But also to be ready to make the best out of the situationwhere the company is threatened to get infected by the negative effects caused by acompetitor.When companies get the chance to make a response on the negative publicity on theircompetitor, as well as the category, through media, the question is - shall they act And howshall they act Which response is the most effective to send out to get out of involvement, notget infected by negative spill over's or even - to make the valenced comparison a way togenerate positive effects and gain market share The purpose of this paper is thereby to find the optimal strategy for an organization in theindustry to handle their competitor's crises through a pronouncement in media. Anotherpurpose to address is whether the brand strength is moderating the effects from the differenttypes of responses tested in this study. This purpose aims to find guidelines depending onthese moderating effects.The paper commodiously, strongly supports that there are beneficial effects to be generatedfrom making a response in either positive or negative direction in oppose of actively choosingnot to make a pronouncement at all.

This thesis examines the reasons to why railway projects conducted by Banverket (Swedish National Rail Administration) could be expected to cause significant effects on the environment, on which grounds the County Administrative Board and Swedish National Rail Administration base their decisions/assumptions and highlight regional differences between the different Swedish national rail administrations regions. Total 24 railway projects, conducted or being conducted, during the time period 2001 - January 2010 have been analyzed and studied. These projects represent eight different measures/activities which are dispersed throughout all five of the Swedish National Rail Administration´s different regions. Swedish legislations demands that the planner of a new railway project shall first conduct a pre-study and then conduct a public consultation which provides the participants an opportunity to provide input. The County Administrative Board shall then decide if the project could cause significant effects on the environment.

This research examines the effects of creative store window displays of fashion brands in enhancing recall, attitudes, intentions and brand associations. A comparison has been made between high-end and low-end brands, creative versus non creative store window displays to identify differences in effects. The theory applied in this study has been used from creative advertising effects due to the lack of relevant research in store window display effects. Therefore this study is a contribution to the research of store window effects. The method used in this study compare fashion high-end brand with fashion low-end brand by placing the products in the store window display where the creativity has been manipulated.

Background: The Swedish retail trading company KappAhl has reorganized all the boutiques in Sweden. Before the reorganization many of the boutiques consisted of four levels: shop manager, assistant shop manager, department managers and regular personel. After the reorganization assistant shop managers and department managers have been replaced by a so called ?responsibility group? consisting of some of the employees. The change is presented as a decentralisation.

The rise of social media has put a focus on the division of owned, paid and earned media, where earned media has recently been hyped at the expense of owned and paid media. Due to a novel area we examine the differences and effects of using owned and paid media, specifically for packaging versus newspapers. Owned and paid media showed no significant differences regarding credibility, persuasion and perceived commerciality, which restored owned media?s status, especially since owned media is more cost efficient. The effects of allowing ads for external brands on the owned medium were also studied.

Since early civilization, herbal tea has been used as remedies for an abundance of different diseases. Among these herbal remedies, peppermint (Mentha piperita) was used for its effect on bowel related ailments. Even though peppermint was not described until late 17th century, it has been used since 1000 years before Christ by the Egyptians. In present day it is still considered a remedy for stomach pain etcetera, and much of the recent research is concentrated on the positive effects of peppermint on pain and bowel diseases. A large section of the research is also reviewing positive effects of peppermint on cancer, allergy and also on its potential as antibacterial agent.