The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of social distance used by the librarians and users in the virtual reference interview. With a conversational analysis and applied politeness theory 49 chat transcripts where analysed in order to answer the question of how the interlocutors positioned themselves regarding the social distance between them. By identifying what communicative strategies where used the following results were found. Generally the social distance between librarians and users is low in the Swedish virtual reference interview. Even though both parties used informal and casual language the results indicate that the librarians face wants were valued slightly higher than the users which were illustrated by a some what higher social distance in the stages of the conversations when the librarians face was under most threat.

Ur ett historiskt perspektiv har forskning om kvinnligt ledarskap fokuserat på att identifiera olika karaktärsdrag och beteende som tillskrivs en ledare. Det har även forskats om olika ledarstilar och vad som är ett bra respektive mindre bra ledarskap. Då vi idag strävar efter högre jämställdhet i vårt samhälle är det ingen hemlighet att kvinnliga ledare är ett kontroversiellt ämne. Vi har undersökt hur detta faktum upplevs i sociala verksamheter utifrån ett genus och makt perspektiv.Vårt resultat visar att dagens föreställningar om hur kvinnor med ledande positioner inom sociala verksamheter arbetar stämmer väl överens med tidigare forskning. Vi har fått fram intressanta och betydelsefulla faktorer som pekar på att kvinnor generellt ser sin maktposition inom det sociala arbetet som mycket positivt och motiverande.

AbstractObstacles or opportunities? ? A study of the experience of collaboration of social welfare secretaries and school staff.The purpose of this study is to illustrate the importance of the work with children and youth through the joint efforts between different authorities. The study deals with the collaboration between the social services and schools in the Ludvika municipality. The objective of the study is to investigate how teaching personnel and headmasters in compulsory schools and the social welfare secretaries in Ludvika, experience the collaboration, and how this works. On the basis of the objective, we have formulated some relevant questions; To what degree are schools aware of the model of collaboration, which is the basis for collaboration within the municipality, and are there any differences in awareness between different categories of employees? Other questions deal with differences in how the social services and schools experience the collaboration, discrepancies between different schools in this regard and if the respondents? experience any obstacles and/or opportunities by the collaboration.Collaboration is, and has been, a pressing issue for a long time in the public debate.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the function of public libraries on the social web, focusing on reading promotion and reading stimulation. For an understanding of the larger context regarding public libraries on the social web, we conducted online interviews via email with people in the Swedish library profession, together with a content analysis of various texts on the subject found in library journals and on the Internet. Furthermore to identify the public library's practice on reading promotion and reading stimulation on the social web, we did interviews with librarians at a public library on their use of a blog for this purpose, together with a questionnaire handed out to the library's users on their use and conceptions of the blog.The conceptual framework of this study consists of four key aspects in the theoretical and empirical definition of Library 2.0 presented by Holmberg, Huvila and Widén-Wulff. The results showed that the public library can create a substantial value through its use of the social web, but it?s necessary to have a clear vision of the desired outcome.

A common experience is that leadership could be better handled during reorganizations within the social services. The purpose of this study is to examine how social welfare secretaries experience their managers during reorganizations. How do social welfare secretaries experience the manger?s role and actions? While developing the interview questions it became relevant to illustrate further aspects: To describe how social welfare secretaries experience the reorganizations that they have gone through and their experience of the everyday leadership around the managers?; openness, availability, clarity, trust and skills regarding managing stress among their staff. The study is built on qualitative interviews with six social welfare secretaries within units working with economical social assistance in different districts in the city of Gothenburg.

Uganda är ett av världens fattigaste länder i dag. Med en kraftigt utbredd fattigdom som försvåras av att landet har en bristande demokrati, vilket har lett till utbredd korruption i landet. Vilkoren för att skapa social välfärd och att bedriva socialt arbete är begränsat. Jag har i detta arbete valt att undersöka hur ett antal personer i Uganda med socialt arbete som specialitet, hur de ser på social välfärd i Uganda. Vilka hinder finns och hur ska man kunna bygga upp social välfärd som inkluderar hela befolkningen, var några av frågorna jag ställde mig.

In this essay, I have studied the image of the drug abusing mother and her motherhood as seen in some of the social science literature on drug abusing women. This I did with a qualitative research design and with the questions:How is the drug abusing mother and her motherhood portrayed by social scientists?What signification is her motherhood given in her life by the researchers?What approach towards the drug abusing mother in the research process, and hence in the creation of the images of her, does the scientists have?I found that there are distinct patterns and themes in the research on mothers with a drug abuse. The researchers studied the women with the goal to understand them and to give them the opportunity to speak for themselves through the researcher. The drug abusing mother is in short portrayed as a woman who cares for her children, whose motherhood is one of the most important factors in her life and who is anxious that her substance abuse should not threaten it.

Detta examensarbete är ett produktutvecklingsprojekt och det utfördes med ÅF somuppdragsgivare. Syftet med examensarbetet var att utveckla en produkt som främjarkällsortering inom sjukvården och arbetet genomfördes i samarbete med Locum som ärfastighetsförvaltare för sjukhus i Stockholms län.Examensarbetet fokuserade på att utveckla en användaranpassad produkt som motiveraranvändaren till att källsortera. För att uppnå detta inleddes arbetet med bakgrundsstudie för attdefiniera kunden och för att erhålla kunskap om avfallshantering inom sjukvården.Bakgrundsstudien bestod av litteraturstudie, sjukhusbesök och intervjuer, och utifrån deninsamlade informationen genererades idéer kring hur avfallshanteringen inom sjukvården kanförbättras.Idégenereringen resulterade i flera olika konceptförslag som baserades på olikaproblemområden. Det som var gemensamt för samtliga förslag var ett informativt gränssnittsom bidrar till att det blir lätt att sortera rätt. Konceptförslagen utvärderades mot användareoch andra intressenter, och med hjälp av deras åsikter genomfördes ett konceptval där detbeslutades att sorteringsvagnskonceptet skulle vidareutvecklas.

I denna rapport presenteras produktutvecklingen av glidbelag till friluftspulkor åt företaget Segebaden. Arbetet är genomfört som ett examensarbete inom Produktutveckling- konstruktion under våren 2012 på Mälardalens Högskola. Glidbelag är skenor som sitter under friluftspulkor vars syfte är att minska slitaget på pulkan samt minska friktionen mot underlaget. Belagen som finns på marknaden idag är tillverkade i plast och är därför inte speciellt slitstarka. Pulkorna är ofta tungt packade och dras ibland över sten och grus. Detta ger en kraftig nötning på belagen som med tiden får högre friktion mot snön.

Our aim with this study is to explore socialworkers perception of what is a good treatment is and how to establish good relationship with their clients. We have decided to limit our study with social workers in Economic assistance and Abuse Units in social servises and explore if we can discern any differences between the units. We have chosen to use qualitative methods to achieve the aim of this study. We interviewed a total of seven social workers, of which three were from Abuse unit and four were from Economic assistance unit. One of the theoretical frame we have used is Goffmans (1970, 1974) theories about social interaction in which he explains the social encounter between social workers and clients.

With this study, our purpose has been to achieve profounded knowledge and understanding regarding the use of discretion among social workers specialized in social allowance issues. The Social Services Act, structured as a framework law in the Swedish context, provides the social worker with a certain degree of discretion, in order to enable accommodated decisions depending on client case specifics. This study problematizes these aspects of legal security, and our intention has been to examine which factors impact the assessments social workers carry out in statutory decisions of social allowance applications. To attain this, we narrowed down our intention into a number of distinct and delimitated research questions: (1) Which elements of the client case impact the social worker?s assessment? (2) Which external aspects influence the social worker?s assessments and decisions? (3) How do social workers decide the client?s credibility? In order to establish answers to our research questions, we have utilized a qualitative approach of research by exerting qualitative interviews in addition to a vignette study.

The aim and goal of this work has been to design and implement a voltage reference network for a 12-bit PSAADC, Parallell Successive Analog to Digital Converter. A chip containing the design has been sent away for fabrication. Because of the long processing time, no measurement data are presented. The main specifications for the voltage reference generator is to generate stable reference voltages with low noise and a good PSRR. Efforts has also been made to minimize the power consumption..

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of threats and violence among four social workers at a social services' reception center for individual and family care. The study uses semistructured interviews and an abductive approach. The analysis is based on previous research, communication theory, coping and sense of coherence, SOC. The study shows that the studied workplace isn't considered to be particularly exposed to threats and violence, although all four respondents have experienced threats and/or violence. The respondents make a difference between threats and harsh words from clients because they consider their clients are entitled to be upset considering the nature of the work conducted at the workplace.

The purpose of this study was to examine how professional workers understand the bullying problem among Swedish youth in the age of 13-15 years. The main focus was to examine the new phenomena electronic bullying, from a professional point of view.The biggest question to answer was: "How does the school and organizations understand the bullying situation among Swedish youth today?" Individual interviews with professional social workers within the school and nationwide organizations have been used to fulfill the purpose of this work. Two different respondent types were used in order to get a wide perspective and a dynamic view.Electronic bullying had increased, but the school yard was still the most common arena for bullying, according to the respondents. The schools tried to prevent bullying, but the social workers felt that they lacked some knowledge of electronic bullying, because it was relative new.

Abstract CORDIC (Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer) is an iterative algorithm for the calculation of a two-dimensional vector in circular, linear or hyperbolic coordinate systems. This paper presents a survey of known CORDIC algorithms and architectures for the rotation and vectoring mode in the circular cordinate system. In addition an implementation of the differential CORDIC algorithm in VHDL has been done. The implementation is designed to keep the fast timing and throughput characteristic known for on-line redundant arithmetic..