A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the characteristics of the management control system private equity firms use to manage their portfolio companies. The thesis takes a share holder value perspective, and it is assumed that the goal of the management control system is to increase the shareholder value in the portfolio company. In a qualitative study two private equity firms and two portfolio companies, one for each private equity firm, were studied in detail. In total, nine in debt interviews were completed. The results from this study suggest that the characteristics of the control system are dependent on the surrounding context; the focus on shareholder value and the specific characteristics of the private equity industry shape the characteristics of the management control system.

The aim of this diploma work was to obtain a review of the appeal process in Sweden under the Planning and Building Act and the possibilities of appeal in the planning and building permit process. The work was intended to identify potential problems surrounding the appeal process and possible efficiency measures. The goal was to form a report that provides a satisfactory overview of the appeal process in theory and practical application as well as provide relevant concrete proposals on how the appeal process can be streamlined.Background and facts surrounding the work were taken from different types of literature and through several interviews with representatives in government, industry and politicians.The main problems related to the appeal process are in the long processing times and the high number of appeals. There is a great interest to streamline the appeals process and the government is going to launch studies in which possible future actions will be investigated.It is possible to appeal for up to two instances before you need a so called ?leave to appeal? in order for your complaint to be passed on to the next instance.

This report is the result of a thesis at the company Sanmina in O?rnsko?ldsvik. The thesis is the final work at the mechanical engineering program at Umea? University.Sanmina has in 2015 launched an initiative to ensure that all sites are using LEAN principles and tools to enhance their business. As part of the plan for the LEAN-work, an LSS (Lean Six Sigma)-project has started to study the company's receivehall and inspection.

During the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century Sweden experienced social changes. The proceeding industrialization led to a process of urbanization where people were forced, more or less, in to the cities to find work. The traditional agricultural self-sufficiency society was successively replaced by salaried employment. This meant that family and home was no longer the major centre of production, nurturance and care. In order to support themselves and their families, even women applied for industrial work.

 Saab Microwave Systems (SMW) is a business unit within Saab AB that manufactures and develops different types of radar- and sensor systems for naval, airborne and ground based forces as well as within the market for civil security. In addition to the manufacturing of radar and sensor systems they also provide different types of service concepts. The business unit has 50 years of experience within the area of developing radar systems and is considered to be one of the market leaders. When applying an assemble-to-order production strategy with products at this level of cost price the product lead-time is vital and becomes an important part of the strategy within marketing and sales. Within SMW there is a new department called Supply Management (SM) that provides the supply of incoming and outgoing material. Within SM there are four sub-departments working with activities such as planning, purchasing, receiving inspection, storage and distribution.

No abstract.

Quality assurance for Scania engine componentsScania engines have become one of the world?s most renowned corporations in themanufacturing of engines. This is mostly due to the quality and performance thatScania have shown. However, this does not stop Scania from trying to achieve moresuccess in the fields of development and research to assure the quality of theirengines.The purpose of this thesis is to show how Scania ensures the quality of the enginecomponents, both those who made externally and internally at Scania, also inclusivethe manufacturing and assembly process.Three engine components were examined: D16 block engines, water pump andXP-Iinjectors. The study included the whole process from the step of supplying therow materials to the last step in production functional test.In this thesis an investigation of how other companies are working with qualityassurance was conducted.

Objective: 1.4 million people in Sweden state that they are having problems with hearing and the majority havehad no contact with the hearing rehabilitation services. To have a hearing loss seems to be associated withseveral negative attributes. This could be due to bad attitude and insufficient knowledge on hearing loss intoday?s society.Purpose: The purpose with this study was to map the adult populations attitude towards hearing loss and selfratedknowledge of hearing with a survey.Methods: A web survey was made for this study. An official link to the survey was shared from two Facebookaccounts to a total of 997 contacts and a total of 247 responses were collected.Results: The majority of the respondents have estimated their general knowledge of hearing to fairly extensivefollowed by very small.

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.

The purpose of this study was to show how two schools from a municipality in greater Stockholm work with a document called "likabehandlingsplan", literally ?plan for equal treatment?. This document is required by law in Swedish schools and a part of each municipality?s program. The goal of the study was to see how teachers and school principals view and work with the plan as a part of their work in preventing discrimination and offensive behavior, in particular in dealing with problems with bullying. The two schools? plans were compared for similarities and differences and how they chose to follow the municipality?s guidelines was examined.

The focus of this work is to study whether public libraries should offer their patrons unlimited access to the Internet, or restrict which sites they can visit. The most common tool used to limit Internet access is filtering software. The author has administered four interviews with public librarians working in libraries in Southern Sweden. All four librarians had different opinions about restricting Internet access. The most important question asked was if they had chosen to use filtering, and the reasons for their decision.

There is an expression called ?grief of climate? that refers to feelings of powerlessness and heaviness related to the environmental problems of today. A feeling that every move we make has bad consequences for nature. This essay is an investigation of how art in general and jewellery art in particular can be a way of discussing and visualizing current environmental problems and the complex relationship between human and nature. I am discussing how artworks dealing with a dark and dystopian picture of the relation can be seen as the memento mori of our time.

The main ambition of this degree project is to illustrate the fundamental problems of today?s electric tariff regulation and the usage of the analyzing tool; The Network Tariff Model. There is a further discussion of potential problems and clear improvements of the 2012 years proposed network tariff regulation. Interviews have been conducted with specific network companies and Energimarknadsinspektionen. The proposed regulation of 2012 is discussed from the government?s proposition.This paper clearly shows that the authority´s work has been conducted in a very unprofessional manner during the period of The Network Tariff Model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyse the private researchers encounter with the Royal Library, national library of Sweden. The main focus is on answering the two questions: who is the private researcher and what is his/her impression of the Royal Library? These questions are answered from the vantage point of the following theoretical perspectives: library anxiety, Bourdieu, library architecture, gender studies and service management. The methods used are qualitative interviews, and textual analysis using the printout of these taped interviews along with notes and an earlier user study as material. The conclusions are that barriers with staff is the most frequent factor of library anxiety in the private researcher at the Royal Library, and mechanical barriers the least frequent.