Humans have always been fascinated by the thought of bringing non living objects to life. We wanted to explore the possibilities of trying to create an artefact that the audience would consider possess emotional states and have a life of its own. TaS is a interactive chair that functions as a social entity. The idea is to try and enhance the bond between human and artefact, based upon the emotional connection. We try and produce, enhance and maintain this bond through curiosity based interaction. Bachelor thesis in Interaction Design by Andreas Eriksson, Johanna Lund and Fredrik Lundh, spring term 2008, Malmö University, K3 School of Arts & Communication..

The purpose of this study has been to investigate which factors are important with foster home placing, to achieve a positive result for the child. The questions that we have focused on is the importance of the child's earlier experiences and relations, the foster homes attitude and approach, the social service organization and the cooperation between these concerned parties. We have also looked at the importance that the relation between the biological family, the child and the foster home can have. This study has been carried out using qualitative interviews with several foster homes, social welfare secretaries and a researcher in the area. We have also chosen to separate the foster homes on the basis of two foster homes only accepting teenagers while other accepting younger children.The theoretical concepts we have chosen to use are connected to attachment theory and the ecology of human development point of view.

In today s society, services are becoming more and more important. They are however, partly because of their immaterial nature, separated from traditional merchandise, why the marketing and producing of them differs. Quality errors in a service are often difficult to discover before the service is brought to a customer, since the producing and consuming of it often takes place simultaneously. Quality errors in a service process are called service failures or in Swedish tjänstefel. Nevertheless, with an effective service recovery process, dissatisfied customers can be turned into satisfied ones.

University of ÖrebroDepartment of social SciencesSociology, Contnuation Course, 61-90hp.Essay 15hp. Spring 2008Title: Who is resbonsible? A soceityscientific discussion about burnout.Author: Emilie FuchsAbstractThe purpose with this essay is to do a critical comparation between two different perspectives, burnout as an individual problem and burnout as a social problem. The first perspective states that the individual itself is responsible for her sickness while the second perspective states that the society and foremost the labour market should work in order to prevent people from beeing burned out. With that purpose in mind I want to enlighten and hopefully bring up the topic for discussion.The essay is based upon the following questions:? How can you sociologically understand the labour market of today?? How can you understand burnout in an individual context?? How can you understand burnout in a social context?By studying and reading four books, I have presented the two different perspectives of burnout.

States have sovereignty in deciding how to tax business profits. If two states wish to tax the same profit that belongs to the same taxpayer, double taxation will arise. The increasing number of multinational companies gives rise to double taxation problems and the states have to co-operate to find out how to avoid such problems. The OECD Model Tax Convention includes an article in how to determine the rights to tax business profits. This article has been a subject of discussion and a committee of the OECD has been working to develop a new article 7.The work in proposing this new article has had as its aim to reassure that the interpretations of this regulation is made in the same way.

Service Design is a relatively new, unexplored and exciting phenomenon that through an interdisciplinary work methodology designs services. A discussion has been going on for a long time regarding whether there is a difference between products and services. Services are often classified as immaterial, heterogeneous, non-storable and inseparable in relation to products. A question that arises is if something specific characterises the work methodology used regarding service design. The aim with this paper is thus to explain the work methodology when working with service design.

Many theories describe failed states as potential threats to international security due to the breeding ground they constitute for transnational terrorism. Ken Menkhaus believes however that transnational terrorists are dependent on a state for their own protection in order to be able to operate.This essay seeks out the relevance in Ken Menkhaus? theory which states that transnational terrorists rather exploit corrupted states than operate in countries where there is a state collapse. His theory will be applied on a case study on post-Libya after Gadhafi?s fall.

This thesis examines the European Union's sanctions policy regarding human rights and interdependence. Previous research has discussed whether sanctions are effective or result in desirable outcomes. This paper aims to take a step back and understand motives by analyzing consistency in the EU?s decisions to impose sanctions. The question is relevant because formal justification can be used to cloak actual motives, and by examining actual decisions, the analyses shed light on motives.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the satellite states of the former Communist bloc immediately departed on a journey towards democracy and market capitalism. Among the many tasks of the newly elected governments, one was to transform the paternalist Communist welfare state into a social system that would decrease the oversized role of the state, at the same time as protecting the citizens from the hardships ensued from the transition.I have studied the evolution of new welfare systems in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, three countries generally agreed as the most similar and most successfull transition countries of the Eastern bloc. Gøsta Esping-Andersen's prominent typology of welfare regimes, consisting of the liberal, corporatist and social democratic regime-types, has constituted the theoretical basis of the analysis. Simultaneously, applying new cases to the typology implies an element of theory testing.The study shows that 40 years of Communism and partial isolation from the West has not prevented these three countries from developing welfare states fully compatible with those of Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon nations and that all three of them in fact fall within the scope of the corporatist regime-type..

The aim of this qualitative study of service work in the private sector is to examine how the service worker experiences his/her work. There are three dimensions of the service workers experience in focus, and they are the base of my formulation of questions. The first dimension refers to how the service worker experiences the emotional labor demands from the employer. The second dimension concerns the relation between service worker and customer, from the view of the service worker. The third dimension problematizes how service workers experience efficiency.I have interviewed three call center customer workers and two hotel receptionists, using semi-structured interview technique.

The aim ofthis study was to examine how economic growth affects the level of democracy inauthoritarian states. Some of these states have experienced high economicgrowth. However, one can discuss how it affects the country?s democratization-process.For that reason this study was needed to contribute to a clarification of howeconomic growth can affect authoritarian rule and democratization. This wasdone through an examination of the development in China.

With this master thesis we wanted to find out in which way the concept of public service is connected to different perspectives, ideals, visions of the future and forms of organizations. The purpose with our thesis was to do an analysis of different concepts regarding to public service. To the analysis of concepts we used Swedish newspapers and analysed the issue of public service that had been discussed in articles written during the last five years. From this material and other papers about public service we developed a model of public service ideals. We wanted to find out what the different perspectives thought about the Swedish television and their commission.

The background of this paper is the dual role that the social worker can have, of beeing both supportive and controlling in the meeting with clients. It is also about the power the social worker can have, how they handle the power in their profession and how they remain to it in the relationship with the client. The study is qualitative and built on interviews with eight social workers that work in different areas in the social services. We have chosen to see this dual role as if the social workers have to, in their daily work, handle the roles as one authority role and one supportive role towards the client.The purpose of this study is to understand how the dual role as the social worker has in the profession, as a helper and a authority, is expressed in the work and relationship with the client. We have turned this purpose into two questions: How do social workers with authority remain to the dual roles of the profession? How do the social workers describe and understand power?We don´t want to generalize in this study, we want to give an example of the social workers own experiences about the dual role.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyse which effects a service strategy has on the control system of an organisation. The thesis takes a service perspective, and it is assumed that a service strategy gains competitive advantage and that the goal of the service strategy is to increase the customers? satisfaction level. A qualitative in-depth case study was performed on a Swedish beauty company. The organisation?s vertical structure was examined, from central to local level.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to study an electronic reference service from a user perspective. By qualitative interviews with eight students the thesis examines their information behaviour, why and when they use the service, the user?s experiences of the service and the communication with the librarian. The users have all used the Swedish electronic reference service Fråga biblioteket ? Forskningsbibliotek.