The aim of this thesis is, from a business perspective, to examine how the pharmacy chain Medstop is working with their positioning in order to achieve competitiveness in the re-regulated pharmacy market. This is studied through a theoretical framework that demonstrates five forces that affects the competitiveness in an industry, the five-force model by Michael Porter.The thesis is a qualitative case study where data collection was done through interviews, literature, articles, websites and internal information from Medstop. The data was then complied into the theoretical perspective the authors have chosen for this paper, the five-force model by Michael Porter. This model was chosen because it gives a broad description of the competition a company faces by describing five different forces that affect the competition within a branch. The fact was collected on the basis of the marketing strategy positioning, and the essay is written from a business perspective.Our cunclusions are that the pharmacy chain Medstop are in their initial positioning and has chosen to position itself on the basis of their core values; credibility, safety and security.

Sweden became a member of the European Union in 1995. When Sweden entered the Union the government also agreed on implementing every law, regulation and directive the Union have and will have in force. One directive the Union wants every country to implement is the Directive (93/104/EG) concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time. This directive includes regulations concerning the relationship between employer and employees. The regulations in the directive must be in force before January 1 2007.One of the main points in the directive is the possibility for the parties on the labour market to reach agreements through collective agreements that deviate from the legislation concerning work hours.

This Masters thesis aims to examine how Swedish public libraries deal with the new challenge of evaluating web resources. In order to study this we have asked staff involved in gathering links for the libraries web sites to participate in a survey concerning how they go about choosing links. Apart from trying to capture this procedure it has been our purpose to establish whether the libraries feel they should provide their patrons with evaluated links at all and in what way they are influenced by other libraries or other main figures involved when choosing a link. We were also interested in the differences between libraries with large and small link collections. When defining evaluation, we have only focused on content.

The discussion of the swedish treatment of offenders often revolves round the two contradictions punishment and care. Modern prison is described to be based on values such as humanity, care and respect, although the main task is to protect the society from criminals by keeping them locked up. This study focused on the role of the prison officer with the purpose of understanding how he sees his profesional role in an organisation influenced by punishment and care.Central questions are: How does the prison officer handle his role as caretaker in an organisation where he not only has the right to, but also is obliged to, controle and power his clients? How does the prison officer define his working role and does he find any dificulties in combining these?The research was realized during the months of April and May 2005 through qualitative interviews and conversations with prison officers working in a swedish prison. It also contained a minor fieldstudy in that same prison.The results showed that the principle conflict between punishment and care have an insignificant influence on the daily work of the prison officer.

Although  ?naming and shaming? paedophiles are growing in Sweden, professionals working with the rehabilitation and treatment of paedophiles describe that the naming and shaming might not prevent child sex abuse. On the opposite naming and shaming alienates the perpetrator from any ordinary life. The alienation could lead them to only having other paedophiles as friends. Previous studies show that professionals are often distancing themselves from working with paedophiles, even if there is competence.

Background: The international accounting standard regarding goodwill gives opportunities to several accounting procedure choices, as goodwill is a complex, intangible asset. The valuation of goodwill affects equity/asset ratio and income statement, which gives that the stakeholders? impression of the group?s financial statement is affected by the valuation of this asset. It has been pointed out that difficult economic times bring impairment loss to the fore. During financial crisis, equity/asset ratio may be significant as the economy of the groups is expected to be strained.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to explain the appearance of the possible relationship between a group?s impairment loss for goodwill and their equity/asset ratio, during financial straits.

The purpose of this essay is to examine Banverket?s problems with its current financial model as it relates to reporting on operations and maintenance work, and to propose measures to simplify the model..

System Andersson AB is a company located in Jönköping that works with developing computer systems for the mechanical engineering industry. As of today, when this report is written, the company is working on the development of a new Manufacturing Planning and Control (MPC) system. This new system aims to create not only a user friendly interface but also a modern, stylish interface. To achieve this, the company has decided to work with a, for them, new application framework; Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).System Andersson is well known for developing systems for different kinds of touch screens, this project is no exception. For this new user interface the company wishes to implement different types of Drag&Drop functionality.

Holmen Paper is one of Sweden?s leading manufacturer of paper, with two Swedish production facilities located in Norrköping and Hallstavik. The European continent constitutes the company?s largest customer base which makes the company?s distribution system an integral part of the business. Historically, much of the produced paper has been transported by vessels, as vessels allow large volumes of goods and deliveries to markets which are difficult to reach with other modes of transportation.

For a company to get the best possible profitability, requires financial planning. Budgeting isa common tool in financial planning. For operating lamb producers, a planning program suchas Agriwise is a good tool. Individual lamb producers may change certain standard figureswithin the planning program to better correspond with reality of the individual cases. In thisway, lamb producers may plan according to which revenues and costs they may expect thenext period.

The aim of this study was to increase our understanding of how secondary schools handle the different forms of bullying in different arenas. The questions we were asking us was how schools work to prevent and treat against bullying based on plans of action, how the schools are responsible in the bullying issues and how the schools and welfare officers have taken account of sex linkage in bullying issues. Our study is based on the result from seven qualitative semi- structured interviews with secondary school welfare officers in Sweden.  The study results show that traditional form of bullying takes place through verbal assault, physical violence, ostracism and glances. Welfare officers coincide that there are gender differences in the approach of bullying.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

The increasing public concern regarding the government?s priorities in spending public resources puts pressure on public organisations to address quality issues in their practice. In United Kingdom both BRTF (Better Regulation Task Force) (BIS, 2005b) and the Hampton report (BIS, 2005a) highlighted management and quality problems in public organisations in UK. These reports revealed obstacles within institutions? intent to offer recommendations and appropriate solutions for agencies working with legal enforcement and control.

Restrictions in nature conservations are increasing the influence of forest management. Nobel broadleaved forests are more influenced than other forests, because they are considered to be more valuable than other forest types in Skåne. There has been a lack of knowledge about the amount that is set-aside for nature conservation and what types of forest that is concerned. These are the main questions to be answered in this thesis. Moreover has the timber quality been compared between set-aside and non-set-aside areas since it affect the financial conditions for the forestry in nobel broadleved forests. The last asked question deals with the financial consequences of set-aside.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI, can be used for analyzing brain activity in subjects performing language tasks. The purpose of this study was to develop aphasia-friendly information adjusted to aphasic subjects participating in fMRI studies. The objectives were to investigate if adjusted information was important for the ability to perform language tasks and if the information could be used for different types of aphasia.Sixteen aphasic subjects participated in the study, six of these underwent fMRI. The participants varied in grade and type of aphasia. They had Swedish as their native language and were aged between 26 and 89, mean 57.