It is popular to keep reptiles as pets in Swedish households. The number of households reporting reptile ownership is more than 15 000 (SCB, 2006). This means that a veterinary practice should consider how to take care of reptiles as patients. The aim of this study was to examine literature and studies concerning safe handling and restraint of reptiles as well as the effects of acute and long term stress response and to suggest a simplified plan for handling reptiles in a veterinary practice. The result of literary studies is that common recommendations for safe handling and restraint of reptiles is based on old techniques and experiences from safe handling of wild animals. The main concern is safety for the veterinary nurse and for the reptile. Stress studies indicate that acute stress response is not harmful for the animal i long term. On the other hand studies of the effect of prolonged stress are not conclusive.

In healthcare settings, administrative routines have been made more efficientthrough digitalization of information and the introduction of stationary computers.This situation is especially true when it comes to radiology, where pictures,referrals and patient information now is completely managed by advanced stationarycomputer systems. However, studies have shown that these rationalizationsdo not support flexible and mobile work routines.PocketRIS is a prototype illustrating a mobile terminal for radiology that hasbeen designed to simplify workflow and reduce the cognitive workload of healthcarepersonnel. PocketRIS includes a visualization of the clinicians work situationincluding a personal referral list that can make the user attentive of importantevents.Contextual Design has been used to elicit the basic system requirements for thesystem; 19 contextual inquires was conducted with physicians, nurses and assistantnurses at two different radiology clinics in Sweden during six days. The purposeof the study was also to identify the groups that have the greatest need for amobile terminal. The study was concerned with design and evaluation of differentsolutions with healthcare personnel.The result shows that physicians and assistant nurses have the greatest need ofa mobile terminal.

Today multi-touch technology is the basis for many new techniques designed to improve interactions with computers and mobile devices. It seems that multi-touch screen interface makes the user handling very natural in the sense that there is no need for a manual in how to interact with the object on the screen. The aim with this paper is to establish a fundamental set of design principles intended specifically for large multi-touch interfaces. To reach this goal we have implemented a couple of sub-goals beforehand: It was essential that we acquired a good understanding of the current state of the multi-touch interface and the different implementations that exist today. To make this possible we constructed a multi-touch display, "Rosie". Knowing how the hardware is produced today will help us understand the limitations and also the possibilities of the design implementations today and in the future. We also needed to devise a sound interaction design process that conveys the modern designers work.

This thesis examines how a company can get an effective, high quality, maintenance of their computerized systems. After literary studies concerning the life cycle activity Maintenance we have studied how the maintenance at the department IT Supply of IKEA IT AB in Älmhult is carried out. What steps and measures in the analyzing of results of changes are carried out and if they have predefined processes for changes. Based on the facts we found most important in our literary studies we have created a model and theoretically applied this to the maintenance of a specific system to see what they can work with to further improve the quality and efficiency in their maintenance. The basis for our thesis is literary studies and the collected material has been used as a foundation for the research at the company, which was carried out through interviews.

The communicating home concept has been defined byidentifying the dominating communication technologiesto/from and in the homes, the most important customerbehavior and user needs, the dominating products and thedominating actors of the industry.The evaluation of the communicating home industry has beenperformed with a five forces framework analysis and theoriesregarding value migration and value structures of industries. Ithas been concluded that actors of communication technologies,goods and access services will compete fiercely. The barriersof entry will however be high. When it comes to contentservices the situation is completely different. These actors will,to the largest extent, meet lower competition and low barriersof entry.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the use of IT, that is the Internet and other applications of personal computers, among seniors 65+. It also deals with issues of access to IT for seniors in public libraries. The theoretical background of the study consists of Rogers "Diffusion of innovations", Hektors categories of information activities, and the Swedish IT-commissions categories of motives and prerequisites for the use of IT. The research questions focus on factors motivating the use of IT, the extent and the purposes of IT use, the consequences and the barriers that IT-users experience, and views on IT in public libraries and IT courses, respectively. Qualitative interviews were carried out with nine senior IT-users.

Den du är, inte den du förväntas vara ? en kvalitativ studie av läroböcker i religionskunskap och dess behandling av kön, sexualitet och etnicitet (Who you are, not who you are expected to be - a qualitative studie of textbooks in religious studies and the treatment of gender, sexuality and ethnicithy) is a qualitative study with the primary focus to examine textbooks as a resource for the teacher. Focus is put on how gender, sexuality and ethnicity is portrayed in textbooks for religious studies in upper secondary school. The textbooks are also examined as a resource based on their usefulness. To do this a hermeneutic approach was taken and the textbooks were studied based on the knowledge they provided and their readability.

This study aims at examining if abnormal returns have existed on theSwedish stock market surrounding the ex-dividend period between the years2002 and 2006. The ex-dividend period that is studied is the ex-dividend dayplus the following five days. The stocks that have been studied are the thirtymost traded stocks which together constitute the index OMXS30.Furthermore, the study investigates if the size of the dividend has an effecton the size of the abnormal returns.Previously performed studies on both the Swedish stock market and foreignstock markets have shown that abnormal returns exist during the ex-dividendperiod. However, the results from these studies are not unambiguous, why itis interesting to follow up these studies with a new study.The method used for investigating the existence of abnormal returns aroundthe ex-dividend period has taken its starting point in the previouslyperformed studies. However, some changes have been made in order tocalculate for differences in risk between different stocks (using beta) whichhas been neglected in the previous studies.The results of our study are that abnormal returns have existed for four outof six days in the ex-dividend period when calculating a mean value over allfive years.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to gain insights into students? usage and attitudes towards electronic articles and electronic books and how students feel about a change from print collections to digital collections at Växjö University Library. The main questions are: How do different groups of students use the library collections of electronic articles and electronic books? What factors influence the usage of the library collections of electronic articles and electronic books among students? What are the students? experiences of reading electronic books in comparison with reading print books? What would different groups of students think if the literature they need for their studies were purchased in electronic form instead of print? To answer the questions a user study was carried out at Växjö university library. A web survey was sent to students that had a library card and an email address registered at the library.

Together with Hälsoteknikalliansen the project team recognized the need to improve availability in the staircase environments. This is a difficult environment, especially for our elderly. The staircase leading to and from apartments is such a major obstacle that many people do not dare to go into the staircase leading to their front door. The market study that the project team conducted showed that many were in need of a living support, often a relative, who helped and supported them when they went into these stairs. It also appeared that these people manage everyday life just fine, but they suffer the problems that stairs to and from their apartment causes.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how the public library can support adult learning through collaboration with other actors in the community. This is done by examining the activity of Linköping municipal library towards the user group adult students. The questions raised consider; the political view of supporting adult learning, the role of the public library, who are the actors in Linköping, the experiences of collaboration and finally what promotes and restrains collaboration. The investigation is done as a case study with qualitative methods. The qualitative methods was found to be the most appropriate for this study, since the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews.

Today multi-touch technology is the basis for many new techniques designed to improve interactions with computers and mobile devices. It seems that multi-touch screen interface makes the user handling very natural in the sense that there is no need for a manual in how to interact with the object on the screen. The aim with this paper is to establish a fundamental set of design principles intended specifically for large multi-touch interfaces. To reach this goal we have implemented a couple of sub-goals beforehand: It was essential that we acquired a good understanding of the current state of the multi-touch interface and the different implementations that exist today. To make this possible we constructed a multi-touch display, "Rosie". Knowing how the hardware is produced today will help us understand the limitations and also the possibilities of the design implementations today and in the future. We also needed to devise a sound interaction design process that conveys the modern designers work.

Journalists´ role in society has traditionally been of representative nature with a task to distribute news and scrutinize those in power. But technological changes have created a new publishing world outside the traditional media institutions. In today?s redactional society anyone can become a publisher in a blog or through other channels on online. This process can be seen as contributing to increased democratization giving everyone the opportunity to publish.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the user service discourses in the field of public libraries that can be identified in four Swedish library journals. Also which underlying causes that control the discourses and the consequences of them are examined. Questions in this study are: which discourses can be found, what characterises them, what kind of different discourses concerning technology in society control the user service discourses and what are the consequences of them. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. The method is text analytic.

AbstractTitle: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima withWorld of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande ? en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet avmachinima med World of Warcraft)Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendixAuthor: Peter BrandbergTutor: Else NygrenPeriod: Autumn 2006Course: Media and Communication Studies CUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories).Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis.Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points.