The purpose of this thesis is, from a self directed learning perspective, to investigate the support of public libraries and genealogy associations of genealogists' own research, i.e. their search for ancestors as well as their possibilities to broaden their history outlook. Accordingly, five public librarians and five genealogy representatives in the west of Sweden have been interviewed regarding the support that can be offered to genealogists. The investigated support to genealogists in their own research is about working environment, literature and material, activities and the cooperation between public libraries and genealogy associations. In this thesis conclusions are merely drawn from a self-directed learning perspective, a perspective where also different forms of support are being recommended by scientists.

Horse-hair lichen Bryoria bicolor is a red-listed lichen species in the category Vulnerable. It is an oceanic lichen and it is often found on boulders and cliffs in a semi-open environment with a high humidity in the agricultural landscape. The species can also be found as an epiphyte on trees, mostly in boreal forests in the provinces of Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland. In the agricultural landscape, there has been indications on that B. bicolor show a decline, and this studie aimed at examining the extent and causes of this decline.

The research work performed in this thesis has been carried out at the Production Tech-nology Centre where the Thermal Spray research group of University West has its work-shop and labs.This research work has been performed in collaboration with the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad, India.First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to my supervisors Dr. Nicolaie Markocsan and Dr. Nicholas Curry for their guidance, great support and valuable suggestions without which this work could not have been possible. I would also like to thanks Prof. Per Nylén for keeping faith in me and providing me an opportunity to work at PTC, which is a great place to perform research.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera Aftonbladets och Expressens rapportering av Haiti under en specifik historisk tidpunkt och undersöka om och i så fall på vilka sätt postkoloniala diskurser om Väst och De Andra präglar denna rapportering. Det empiriska materialet består av 99 artiklar som alla berör jordbävningskatastrofen i Haiti och som publicerats i Expressen och Aftonbladet under tidsperioden 13 januari 2010 till och med 22 januari 2010.Uppsatsens analyser visar att det universalistiska likhetsideal som merparten av artiklarna appellerar till är samma likhetsideal som samtidigt konstruerar Haiti som annorlunda och haitierna som De Andra. Det blir tydligt hur motsägelsefulla resonemang får mening genom eurocentriska dikotomier mellan västerländsk överordning och haitisk underordning. Föreställningar om ett rationellt, civiliserat, pålitligt och godhjärtat Väst tillåts att frodas i relation till ett Haiti iscensatt som passivt, farligt, korrumperat, opålitligt och laglöst. Bistånd, hjälparbete och militära interventioner framställs därför inte bara som en direkt aktion för att hjälpa de drabbade av jordbävningen utan också som ett medel för att hjälpa Haiti in i civilisationen med universalistiska värden och en utopisk självbild som ledstjärna..

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and question the use of mindfulness in the workplace. Mindfulness in the workplace can be understood as an organization recipe and is now a so called trend. We believe that there may be an issue of how mindfulness at work is advertised when it is described in such a way that it could be the solution to many organizational problems, such as reducing stress, increasing efficiency, creativity and productivity. To get a better understanding of what mindfulness is and what it can bring to a stressful work, we conducted semi-structured interviews with four mindfulness instructors. We analyzed the interviews from a theoretical analytical framework consisting of both a constructivist perspective and a power perspective.

During late autumn/winter in the years of 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 a questionnaire study was made in Västra Götaland county in the south west of Sweden. Inspectors responsible of animal welfare answered the questionnaires during their routine visits to different horse stables in the county. The questionnaires contained questions about the number of horses at the farm, hoof condition, body condition, how often the horses were fed outside and the pasture condition. The purpose of this study was to investigate if a connection could be seen between environmental factors and health factors within the horses in this material. The connections that were analysed were between; hoof health and pasture condition, how many times the horses were fed outside and the body condition and between the number of horses in the pasture and pasture condition.

Lean production is the name given to Toyota?s Production System (TPS) by the west. The continuous improvements of their operations through Lean has made Toyota into the largest car manufacturer in the world. This, in turn, has led to several studies regarding both Toyota and their system as to find ways to apply Lean in other organizations. Even so, over 90 percent of all companies fail to implement Lean.

For centuries Islam and Muslims have been subject to islamophobic attitudes in the west. The purpose with this study was to see into the making of open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims from a conflict in southern Thailand, and also to so see if Muslims are portrayed as more violent than the Buddhist groups in the conflict. The aim of the study is also to see if Muslims fall into a violent stereotype. This was studied by looking at five Swedish newspapers coverage of the conflict, during a given time. To be able to look into this, two theories will be used, the first one is the Runnymede Trust theory, which is about open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims.

In the past years the traditional donors of development assistance have been increasingly aware of changes in the donor landscape. This as emerging economies like China and India has undergone a transition from recieving aid to becoming emerging donors. By identifying and comparing ideas, beliefs and interests pursued using foreign aid between so called emerging and traditional donors, the greater purpose of this thesis is to take a closer look at the alleged changes in the world order. The starting point is Goldstein & Keohanes framework of the impact of ideas and interests in foreign policy and the one of K.J Holsti about institutions as markers metrics of change. The results show that there is no vast difference in interests but a detectable difference in the ideas behind foreign aid.

Orust Kretsloppsakademi is a nonprofit organisation, with a goal of annually generate the same amount of electrical energy that is consumed. Orust is an island on the west coast of Sweden, north of Gothenburg. The population of 15 000 reaches 40 000 during summer, due to the large amount of vacationer. The total electricity demand is 174 GWh a year with a maximum power need of 32 MW. This report presents an analysis for the plausibility of their plan and from a power system stability perspective, the effects on the electrical grid.The conclusion is that the restraints for development of power generation from wind, solar and wave generation, are the power systems capability to transfer power, primarily in the transformers of the grid.

Syftet med denna fenomenologiska uppsats var att ta reda på om det fanns skillnader beträffande vad de kvinnliga och manliga studenterna vi har talat med upplevde som stressande. Dessa skillnader skulle ha analyserats med hjälp av Berger och Luckmanns teorier om socialisering, samt West och Zimmermans, Butlers och Hirdmans tankar kring genus. Avsikten var också att jämföra resultatet med tidigare forskning. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en kvalitativ metod och insamlandet av data skedde vid semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra manliga studenter och fyra kvinnliga studenter.Studien visade inga tydliga skillnader mellan vad de studerade kvinnorna och männen upplevde som stressande. Dock fanns vissa tendenser till att kvinnorna oroade sig mer över problem, framtiden och vad som skulle ske.

In November 2008 the National Library of Sweden decidedto switch classification system from SAB to Dewey decimalclassification. SAB had then been the main classificationsystem in the whole of the Swedish library field for 87 years.Included into the decision was not just the nationalbibliography but also the research libraries of Sweden. Thisdecision was in alignment with a West European tendency tochange in favor of the internationally well-spreadclassification system Dewey in order to co-operate more inthe cataloguing process. The purpose of this study takenplace in the autumn and winter of 2013 is to examine howlibrarians involved in the transition feel about what differentways the implementation has affected the research libraryorganizations. We also aim to study the librarians? view onthe involvement of the research libraries into the decision ofthe changeover.

Vargaslätten is a 15 hectare large privet garden in Halland in the south-west of Sweden.In the beginning of the 1990s Gunnar O.Westerberg, the owner of Vargaslätten,commissioned a work from the young landscapearchitect, Rolf Efvergren, to writeVargaslätten ? tillägnad naturen. It was a discribing work of the current status of the gardenand the summer-house of Vargaslätten. Vargaslätten ? tillägnad naturen was acomprehensive work with a detalied inventory of all the plants, the buildings, the descriptionof the surroundings and the history.

A large proportion of the energy consumption is in the building industry and a large part goes to heating our homes and premises. In the developing countries' development now threatens the large consumption of energy in our earth's climate. It is in the West world that we must be good role models in terms of energy efficiency. One solution to reduce energy consumption for heating of buildings may be to continue to build low energy houses and passive houses, but it is also about rebuilding the buildings that currently have high energy consumption such as the old Million program Houses. These buildings will be standing many years and their energy consumption will not diminish over time by itself and energy prices will certainly not diminish in the future.

This study concerns ways in which Muslims in Sweden construct their identities. The theoretical approach of the study is based on the assumption that people construct their identities through narratives. Circumstances such as time, place, and relationships affect how narratives are told and therefore how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.In the wake of 11th of September 2001, the old colonial narrative of ?the West vs. the East? has become powerful, and makes many question the possibility of successfully integrating Muslims immigrants in Western countries.