This Master of Science thesis was completed at the Department of Machine Design at the Royal Instituteof Technology in Stockholm in collaboration with Lund Faculty of Engineering, Luleå University ofTechnology and Stanford University. At Stanford University a global product development project wasrealized as part of the course ME310. The project was initiated by the American company ImmerseGlobal whose vision was to develop a new type of Atmospheric Water Generators, a machine that absorbsthe moisture in the air and via a water system transforms it to pure drinking water. The project was partlyfinanced by the Product Innovation Engineering program, a Swedish research and development programfor increased innovation capability in organizations.In parallel with the global project in the ME310 course the product development process was studied inorder to compare it with a product development course at the Royal Institute of Technology, IPU. Thetwo courses are similar to each other in several aspects.

The aim of this study is to examine if library and archive will meet professionally in digitization projects. The study has been conducted as a discourse analysis in accordance with the methods of Norman Fairclough, professor of Linguistics at Lancaster University. The texts are seen as linguistic and semiotic elements of social events that can be analyzed as parts of the social process ? discourse. The relationship between events and structures in society will be part of the social practice.The basic data derive from five public documents collected from Swedish government agencies.

This essay, called Motivation and reading comprehension, is a study of the correlation between the motivation to read and the reading comprehension of Swedish students in their final year of school before university level, meaning that they are eighteen or nineteen years old, sometimes more.The relation between the identity of the individual and the learning process has been a matter of scientific interest for some time, and this essay works in that tradition by investigating the connection between how pupils regard reading and how well developed their ability to decode text is.The reading comprehension is measured through a test that consists of a text from the Swedish epic by Vilhelm Moberg, Invandrarna, where the reader at certain intervals throughout the text is asked to mark the correct word from a choice of three. This test has been used and evaluated extensively by Per Fröjd, who has found that the results are reliable and useful.To measure the motivation to read I?ve constructed a survey to be answered before taking the reading test. It focuses on three different parts of reading motivation that are noted as the most important ones by Ivar Bråten. These are the feeling of joy and interest for reading, the goal to acquire knowledge of a specific subject, and the expectations that you have on yourself as a reader.Results show a weak or non-existent correlation between the two factors for the whole of the subjects, but once those who have a first language other than Swedish are removed the correlation becomes significant.

This paper analyses what effect an application of a specific poststructural feminist theory has on the Swedish classification system SAB. The purpose is to study if it is possible to open up the current representation of gender towards a more multiple one. The study is both theoretical and empirical. The theoretical part include a short presentation of both classification theory and feminist theory. The study also presents the critic that poststructual feminists submit.

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att skapa ett underlag med hållpunkter att använda ledning av kulturprojekt. Frågeställningen lyder: Hur leder man ett kulturprojekt effektivt som möjligt? Den utgår från hur man leder kulturprojekt där deltagarna utvecklas, prestera som bäst och ha kul under tiden. Det teoretiska underlaget utgörs ett antal böcker samt intervjuer med erfarna projektledare. Som metod har jag använt av aktörssynsättet.

This study is about Swedish football supporters located on the cheering section of the arena. These supporters are often being described as hooligans and as a threat to Swedish football. The aim of this study were therefor to provide further knowledge about the supporters on the cheering section and their culture. Questions about supporter behaviour and supporters own opinion on their effect at Swedish football and supporter culture were examined. The data was collected thru a web-based survey of Swedish football supporters.

Background: Sweden has become a society with a multicultural population. Many children start preschools with different backgrounds and experiences. Teachers today face the task of meet those children in the best way. Södertörn University has a special profile on their teacher education, the intercultural profile.Aims: My report focuses on teachers who have been working in preschools for about one to two years after graduating from the intercultural education at Södertörn University. The report aims at finding out more about their experiences and thoughts about the intercultural approach after having worked in the Swedish preschool with a special focus on the intersectional perspective on cultural phenomena class, gender and ethnicity.

As the number of inhabitants increases, the cities expand into the former rural landscape. The urbanization causes changes to the functioning of the peri-urban fringe. Land that previously was used for agricultural production is now used for alternative enterprises, as for example horse keeping and recreation. 75 % of all horses (approx. 200 000) are situated in the peri-urban fringe.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a lot of hope has been put on civil society to help develop Russia into a more democratic society. This study explores the constructive elements in the relationship between civil society and the state in Russia, and how this enables the work toward political development. By using Julie Fishers theory about political development and organisational autonomy I discuss the varying and often complex ways in which civil society and the state interacts. These are often not mentioned in the liberal tradition, which believes that civil society's most important democratic function is to act as a watchdog for the state.There is very limited political space for NGO's in authoritative Russia. The existing oppositional NGO's are important for the political development, but they are few and their impacts on society are limited.

The debate about questions concerning corporate governance has intensified in Sweden the last decade. From July 1th 2008, the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance was extended to comprise all Swedish companies listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm. Our aim with this master thesis is to examine the effect of the Revised Code on Swedish corporate governance and in particular its contribution to creating value or costs. We do this through a qualitative study of 22 interviews with representatives for different interests. With our study, we have found that the Revised Code in several areas has had considerable influence on Swedish corporate governance.

This study is set out to examine if there is any kind of influence between the EU and Swedish gender policy. More specific the Swedish efforts within the gender policy area, especially in the area of social policy and employment, during the Swedish presidency in the Council of Ministers 2001. And also to examine the impact of Europeanization in Swedish gender policy. We have decided to delimit our study to care of elderly and children when it comes to the area of social policy. We are using a descriptive, examining qualitative method.

The aim of this case study was to investigate the role of leadership and interpersonal relations among staff during implementation of lean at a University Hospital in Sweden. The 15 respondents were leaders and staff members from different wards and clinics, who had started working according to lean principles. One of the methods used was explorative, low structured interviews. Other methods used for gathering information about the case was attending lectures about lean healthcare at the hospital, part-taking in the lean game and reading articles about lean and the implementation in both daily press and on the intranet of the hospital. The results showed that an open and accessible leader that coaches his/her staff and supports their work, helps the staff to develop a lean identity.

Skanska 21 is a student program for university students. The program runs for a year and a half parallel to university studies. It is aimed at those studying a few specific master engineering programs at Lund University, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Chalmers University of Technology or Luleå University of Technology. The program consists of a number of program meetings such as company presentations, a boarding school week, rhetoric training and project visits. The aim of the project is to evaluate the Skanska 21 student program.

The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.

Background: This paper was performed by a student in the Public Health Sciences program at the University of Gothenburg as a mandate from the district administration (SDF) Askim-Frölunda-Högsbo in Gothenburg. The assignment was formed on the basis of a need for a new service with a family-centered approach in the form of a family center for families with children aged 6-12 years. The family center will be located in the Frölunda area.Aim: The purpose of this paper was to describe and deepen the understanding of the concept of a family center from a public health perspective. A particular focus was put on interventions that are aimed at children aged 6-12 years.Method: Walker and Avants (2011) model for concept analysisResults: The defined attributes that the analysis led to were the following: Collaboration, Health Promotion, Prevention and Support services and the Visitors. The created model case and the borderline cases showed a clearer picture of the concepts meaning.