This thesis is about university spin-offs and the competition in high technology industries. In the light of efforts to increase the competitiveness of the European Union, an effective transfer of cutting edge technology from universities to the industry plays an important role. University spin-offs, start-ups founded to exploit academic inventions, are likely to face considerable market entry barriers. This is among other reasons due to high capital requirements for further technology development and lack of complementary resources. With a combination of relevant literature and empirical investigation, commercialisation of technologies within spin-offs is investigated and analysed.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to study how three public libraries in the west of Sweden have arranged their fiction for adults on shelves and what the possibilities for fiction retrieval are in their Online Public Access Catalogues OPAC. The theoretical framework includes a practical part consisting of Jarmo Saartis ideas about shelf arrangement and a theoretical part consisting of Annelise Mark Pejtersens different dimensions. The methods used in the case study are three interviews with librarians, visits in the libraries and searching in the libraries OPACs. Furthermore, we have summarized relevant literature about this subject in a summary of research. The analysis shows that our three libraries have arranged their fiction in a traditional way according to Saartis ideas about shelf arrangement.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the lower secondary school teaching in religion leads to a positive understanding and openness, concerning different religions and cultures. We want to study how pupils in grade eight and nine in two lower secondary schools in a multicultural community comprehend different religions. Since we choose a pupils perspective we decided to do a questionnaire to get a wide ground. As a complement we interviewed twelve pupils and also did observations during their religion classes. During our study we focused on three different themes.

Background: Miscarriage is a common phenomenon in our society. It is reported that approximately 17 % of all pregnant women in Sweden go through a miscarriage every year. For many women miscarriage is a tumultuous life event that often has a deep emotional impact. Miscarriage is a subject that often is prohibited to talk about in our western society. Consequently this means that nurses have an important role in the emotional support for these women.

The purpose of this report was to identify the current waste management of non-hazardous construction and demolition waste in a few Swedish construction companies, based on the different steps in the waste hierarchy with a focus on waste prevention, reuse and recycle. Additionally, the purpose was to attempt identifying opportunities, obstacles and as well as to propose possible solutions from an environmental perspective. The method used was a qualitative study using interviews conducted through emails and phone with employees occupying positions that could answer this reports questions. The results of this report indicates that waste management of construction and demolition waste has improved, and less waste goes into landfills. The concern is that the overall amount of waste being produced is not decreasing, thus calling for actions preventing the production of waste.

Background: HIV is a worldwide spread disease with many deaths. People with the disease have previously been met with attitudes, stigma and discrimination in various contexts. A caring relationship should be built on empathy, respect and communication, where the patient is not seen as their illness, but as a person. Today, there are laws that are there to protect the patient, however, there is a lack of knowledge about what is current. Health care workers knowledge in the 2000s has improved, but there is still a lack of knowledge.Aim: To illustrate how patients with HIV experience health care.Method: The literature review was conducted with twelve scientific articles of which two articles were quantitative and the other qualitative.Results: The results revealed three main themes; Different expressions of fear, Perceived negative attitudes and stigmatization, as well as The wish to be lovingly treated in health care.

The aims of the study were to investigate the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli in chicken and chicken products, and to investigate farmer awareness of antibiotic resistance development. The study was conducted in the Can Tho province in Vietnam during six weeks in October to November 2008. Ninety-six samples from raw chickens were collected from twelve market places and analysed for the presence of Campylobacter. A total of 96 cloacal swabs from 20 farms were obtained and analysed for the presence of Campylobacter. Farmers were asked to answer eight questions concerning the housing of the chickens, modes of handling sick animals as well as use and knowledge of antibiotics and resistance development to antibiotics.

The aim of this study was to learn how students in specialist nurse education with direction towards nurse anaesthetist experienced tutorial given during their specialist placement.  The chosen method of the study was qualitative interview with phenomenological approach. Twelve nurse anaesthetist students were interviewed about their experiences during their placement at operation wards. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to Giorgios (1985) analyze method. The result showed that the students considered that a well functioned tutorial was essential for a successful clinic placement. The tutorial considered as satisfactory if the student and the tutor managed to have good communication and a good relation with each other.

Skanska is using work schedules that are specifically designed for employees in the production. These work schedules are called best practice. These are guides containing technical descriptions, design references, capabilities, etc. for work activities. This support function facilitates the work preparation and planning of future work.

Intercropping involving trees is called agroforestry and makes it possible to get higher production for every area unit. The trees can function as food, fodder, fuel, medicine; prevent mark erosion and much more. Agroforestry can also be combined with animal husbandry. The aim of this study was to document the animal production systems used by rural small-scale farmers maintaining ruminants and using agroforestry in the northern province of Rwanda. The farmers using agroforestry is expected to have higher milk yield than average due to homegrown protein. The method used during the study was semi-structural interviews with booth open and closed questions. In order to get in contact with farmers that matched the criteria; small-scaled rural farmers with ruminants and using agroforestry, the ?Vi Agroforestry Programme? (Vi-Life) in Kigali were contacted and the staff worked as supervisors, translators and contact with the farmers throughout the study. During the study nine individual farmers, two cooperatives breeding sheep and one group interview were conducted.

This master thesis was performed at Scania Research & Development. The given mission was to see where the department Systems Development should focus to improve their development work. Thus the purpose was to map the product development processes in which the department works today and within them identify improvements. To fulfil the purpose a theoretical study of relevant terms, such as improvement work, product development and processes, initially was formed. The mapping method used is called "walk trough" and meant to let the people working in the processes be guides in their own process.

The continuous process of urbanization results in demands on research and development for ecological and sustainable city development. Because of this, the current systems for wastewater treatment may have to be improved. In order to evaluate new technologies for municipal wastewater treatment, a development project has been initiated for the new district Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. The project is lead by the company Stockholm Water. High environmental standards have been put up for the district, as it must be twice as good as an ordinary new district.

In today?s society Internet is evolving the tourism industry and it?s the pioneers that use this marketing channel to further their brands that?s that reap the benefits of early adoption. In this essay we research how well two kinds of ownership structures, private ownership and chain ownership, in the hotel market match up against each other in Internet presence and the steps they have taken to encourage guests too book via their websites. We determined that the hotel market in Karlstad was sufficient to study the different kinds of ownership structures as it?s small enough to see the competition between private ownership and chain ownership clearly instead of as normal in more densely populated cities where chain owned hotels dominates the marked due to sheer size. The scientific research consists of two types of methods.

This study regards the Swedish documentation system, BBiC, which is translated from the English version LACS. BBiC is created to make sure that the children?s needs are put in centre of attention in child protection investigations. The BBiC-system becomes problematic regarding unaccompanied refugee children because of the parent-perspective which is a keystone in the system. Therefor BBiC creates discretion for the social worker which is not BBiC: s original intension.