The focus of this thesis is positioning and customer retention in newly started small service businesses. The thesis is based on the case study of two small newly started service businesses: Kåffe In that is based in Skellefteå and Lundström Aaro Design! which is based in Umeå. The thesis presents the conclusion that newly started small service businesses, regardless of industry, seem to work in accordance with the theoretical framework of the thesis..

Horses respond individually to challenges, and the possibility to use these reactions to evaluate equine temperament with an objective instrument would have several advantages. Horse welfare could be improved by making it possible to find individuals best suited for a specific use, and understanding of the development of abnormal behaviours, such as stereotypies, could be increased. Management routines and training could be adjusted tosuit each individual horse and it could facilitate the selection of individuals appropriate for breeding. There are also economic implications, as horse buyers consider temperament important and after evaluating temperament, money can be spent solely on specific horses with all the right qualities. During the last decade, many attempts have been made to measure different aspects of temperament in horses, and the first aim of this project was to look at these studies and see which methods were used and which temperamental characteristics they measured.

Being able to study at the Municipal Adult Education, Komvux, is a privilege available to adults in Sweden of age 20 and above. Although almost 200 000 people attended Komvux 2011 in Sweden, a fifth of the participants discontinued their studies before completing their course(s). This becomes costly for the society, but it is also diminishes the future chances of a career and college studies. In our thesis we have done a quantitative investigation trying to determine what the reasons for dropping out could be. A request to participate in our survey were sent out to all 64 people who dropped out one or more courses during the fall semester 2012 at a Municipal Adult Education in southern Norrland.

The purpose of the essay is to study and create understanding to the bilingual students' perspective on their linguistic skills and the use of them as resources in a scholastic context. A qualitative method has been used to collect empirical data, based on the experiences and perspectives of the students. Bilingualism is defined and past research, which has shown how their bilingualism has influenced them, has been linked with this study. Definition of mother tongue and the meaning of mother tongue tuition for student immigrants' development have been discussed. This research has shown that the students feel their bilingualism is a natural occurrence.

In recent time, agile methods have been devoted much attention, and the concept is widely used in the IT industry in particular. An increasing number of companies are interested in this way of working. The following report is the result of a study on the ability to create value for customers in business development through the use of agile methods. We ask what the advantages and limitations of agile methods are in the creation of customer value. Grounded Theory and an initial literature review was used to answer this question.

The purpose of this study is to highlight some aspects of the increased usage of tablets in preschool environments by answering the questions: what does the tablet become in the preschool environment, how much freedom does the children have over its usage.To answer these questions a series of observations were made at two different preschools. The observations were then complemented by interviews with teachers at the same preschools.This qualitative study focuses on some of the didactic questions regarding the tablets, based on a theoretical framework that is within the design-oriented perspective; which addresses the children's? autonomy, the institutional framework and affordance.Our conclusion is that the tablet?s introduction in the preschool has helped the teachers in numerous parts of their documentation, but we can also see that the children's opportunities to make choices regarding the tablet are more limited than with any other resource on the preschool. In our results we also see that when the children get access to the tablet they receive a learning experience, which among other things, strengthens their language skills and their social interaction with each other..

To understand the motives, and perhaps more importantly the barriers, for farmers to convert from conventional to organic farming is of great interest for policy makers as well as for academics. In Sweden and in other EU countries, proposed targets of the area in organic farmland have failed to be reached in spite of different kinds of policy measures. Most studies agree that the average profitability seems to be comparable to or better in organic than in conventional farming. This would indicate that there must be other factors of importance which can explain the low particiapation rate. A higher perceived risk in organic farming with respect to yield and price is frequently brought up as a potential explanation within a qualitative framework.

THE PAINTING CHILD. A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AESTHETIC PROCESSES OF LEARNING IN RELATION TO DEWEY´S ART AS EXPERIENCE.The aim of this study is to present a discourse analysis made on five-year-old children during art activities in a preschool in Sweden. The questions asked are: how does interaction take place between the children, or the child and the teacher, during art activities? And what does this tell us about the relationship to art in preschool? In Art as Experience John Dewey claims that art is separated from other experiences of life, but that it ought to be close to ordinary life-experiences. Today visual culture is important in society but not in school.

The purpose of this study is to provide a description of how mathematics teachers in grades 3 choose to work with mathematics and how it affects of student performance in national tests. The categories I will use are outdoor education, textbooks, learning materials and problem solving. Laboratory materials can be everyday materials and educational materials in which pupils have an abstract understanding of the subject. This survey was conducted through interviews and observations. The survey was also conducted in relation to student performance in national math tests.

The purpose of the essay was to investigate the way four different educators, at a pre-school with a bilingual profile, work towards strengthening the children?s bilingualism as well as their identity. The research questions concern which guidelines are being used, the educators perceptions concerning children?s bi- and multilingualism and in what way they believe that their pre-school distinguishes itself from others.Qualitative individual interviews and observations were conducted and the empirical data was analyzed using a theoretical framework, constructed of theories concerning language development, ethnicity and identity.The result presented in the study shows that the pre-school not only follows the national curriculum but also their own guideline. The guideline states that there should be both Spanish- and Swedish speaking personnel and that they are ?responsible? for the education in their own language.

Department of Education, University of Stockholm. Second year research project, autumn term 2009. The transformation of Swedish officer´s training into an academic professional education ? a study of professional identity in alteration. The study is a part of the Research Project; Discussion for collaboration - from vocational training to academic professional education.By Michael LarmThe purpose of this study is to analyse in what way the process of transforming Swedish officer´s training into an academic professional education are perceived in terms of professional identity, alteration and synergies.

The form of my essay is that all human communication, can be seen as a practical knowledge, witch can be trained. I describe how I came in to a pedagogic activity, which is aimed to train people?s communicative ability in their working life and in school. This is made in the form of lectures, seminars and training program. In this essay, I even describe my personally background and what it was, that made me work with people outside the theatre.

During the spring semester of 2009 I have participated in what was to become the project The Allotment Plot; a collaboration between the Swedish University of Agriculture and the Wanås Foundation. As one of six students in landscape architecture I have experienced a group based learning process with the point of departure in the designing of an organic and experimental kitchen garden at Wanås, a sculpture park for contemporary art. The project came out as neither us nor any other of the people engaged could have guessed. What was meant to be a garden turned out to become an entire cultivation movement. As students, we have gained a lot of experience through praxis; experience that will be valuable for our future profession. The project has also opened up the possibility to question and reflect upon what our profession and education could or should be about. This thesis focuses on the role of communication and the production of communicative tools in design processes and landscape architectural practice. It discusses how communication may be used in an exploratory and ?un-securing? way, and how this may dislocate the professional role, especially in situations where the design action, as in the case of this study, demands a high degree of transdisciplinarity and collaboration. .

This paper examines possible applications of fuzzy logic on the field of artificial intelligence in digital games. It describes fuzzy logic in contrast to crisp logic. The paper will give several examples of possible applications of fuzzy logic-based decision making for game AI. These examples include the choosing of weapons for AI agents and the gas-break decision of an AI-controlled car. The paper will also analyze the impacts of game AI which makes decisions based on many factors.

The management at the City of Stockholm?s Sports Department have problems. During recent years several IT-projects have been launched but results are worse than could have been hoped for. The projects are generally perceived as being too expensive, too time consuming and not to have delivered the expected results. This thesis aims at giving the City of Stockholm?s Sports Department theoretically based advice on how to improve their management of IT-projects.