Abstract This is a qualitative study of elderly people's experiences of loneliness and quality of life. Also the relationship between loneliness and quality of life are examined. Previous research has shown that social loneliness is about when the social context are lost while emotional loneliness can occur with the loss of close relationships. Quality of life is about a sense of connection but also the quality of life arises in the difference between the expectation of what one is and what one wishes to have. This study has shown that the interviewees preferences, activities, social networks and low expectations on their life situation makes interviewees perceive themselves to be less lonely and have a good quality of life.

Nature?s Best is a quality-label for Swedish Eco-tourism. It is one of very few active ecotourism labels and the only one that claims quality as its main focus. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the certification scheme Nature?s Best with regards to the values the certification creates for the companies that certify their products.

The health care sector is one of the most information-intensive institutions in Sweden. Big investments in information technology have been made to ensure efficiency and quality within organisations in health care. This has led to high requirements in documentation and resulted in an increase in administration which gradually more often is done by nurses and doctors. A major problem is that it is difficult to gain access to the information recorded in all the different systems, which is their objective. This causes double documentation instead of being a support in follow-up performance.

The purpose of this study was to understand how the concept of quality as an idea was spread to and translated in municipal elderly care. A central question was: How does literature, policy documents and key people describe the function and meaning of the concept of quality? The method of analysis was a qualitative case study with a critical discourse. The theoretical framework of the study is mainly what is known as institutional theory and a line of thought describing how ideas are transferred and spread. The theoretical focus is on how original ideas are interpreted and why they gain a foothold in new contexts.

The company is currently in a stage of improvement and has therefore taken the help of students at School of Engineering, Jonkoping University. The current production is batch, production layout is fixed. A bottleneck is created after the first station which leads to large efficiency loss.  The meaning of this report was to provide a layout suggestion with balanced workstations to a new production line. The conditions were that the production line would be one-way, driven by customers order and meet a demand of 40 products per week.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how disabled people who receive the shut-in-service in one community define service quality. The purpose is also to examine the shut-in-service and to look at the users' context. Answers are sought to the following questions: - How do users experience the service quality of the shut-in-service? - What kind of service does the shut-in-service offer to the user? - How can the user be described and which are his/her requests? The analysis is based on theory about service quality by Christian Grönroos. The theory makes a distinction between two kinds of service quality, technical vs functional quality, as experienced by the user through the profile of the organization.

Most of today?s concrete structures that are built on site are mainly constructed in a traditional fashion with a lot of artisanal operations. One step towards industrializing the in-situ construction of concrete is to use prefabricated reinforcement. Through this method there can be a lot of savings when each bar doesn?t have to be placed and fixed separately on site.

In 2005, Outokumpu began to implement its system of continuous improvement, OK> 1, at Avesta Jernverk. OK> 1 has not generated sufficient results on plant KPI:s. The purpose of this study is to identify the understanding,  participation and commitment regarding to OK> 1, and to suggest some actions to make OK> 1 more successful with emphasis on these three aspects. The thesis shall also determine whether there are any differences in the attitude towards OK>1 between Blue Collars and White Collars.The study consisted of a survey, and interviews. The output from these methods were processed and analyzed and finally resulted in a SWOT ? analysis and suggested actions for improving the understanding, participation and commitment towards OK>1.

The cause of fibromyalgia has long been unknown but recent studies has shown that disturbance in the central pain modulation may be the cause. The aim of the study was to examine what kind of physiotherapy and close related treatment methods in the treatment of fibromyalgia there are and to determine their evidence. Articles were obtained by searching through the databases PubMed, Academic Search, AMED/Webspirs, CINAHL/webspirs and PEDro for articles published from 1994 and ten years forward. The study was based on thirty articles that met the criteria for inclusion. To assess the quality of the clinical studies the SBU?s evaluation model was used.

The purpose of this study is to analyse how a distribution and sale-network for quality softwood lumber should be designed to fit sawmilling companies? business concepts, and at the same time satisfy customer needs regarding delivery time and quality aspects. This thesis work is a case study based on a sawmilling and retail company in Sweden. AB Karl Hedin is a private owned sawmilling company with 500 employees. The company?s turnover is 1500 million SEK, it includes 4 sawmills, 16 builders merchants stores and a packaging company.

Multiple sclerosis is a disease whose course is capricious and unprediactable and the exact cause of the disease is still unclear. The purpose of this literature review was to describe factors that can effect quality of life of people with diagnosis multiple sclerosis. The results shows ten different factors that effect quality of life of people with MS: fatigue, activities in daily life, position of dependence, limits of the functional abilities, sense of guilt and shame, comunicationdifficulty, social network, emootional factors, depression and degree of difficulty of the symtomes. Work has been shown to bee a major factor that can make people with MS feel worthy and experience quality of life. Nurs is an important keystone in care of people with diagnosis multiple sclerosis..

Background: A common view about people with diagnosed psychosis is that they are socially withdrawn and that they neither cope nor want to engage in social relationships. Newly published specialist books on this subject also support this view.Aims: To unveil further dimensions of the phenomena by explorative analyzing consumers? own depictions about their ?social relationships".Method: The material is taken from a larger study that followed consumers regularly during a lapse of 3 years. Within this material 15 interviews from three respondents were chosen, a selection which gives maximal spreading concerning age, sex and background. The interviews where analyzed by methods based on Grounded Theory.Results: Three main dimensions were identified: supportive relationships, difficulties and social withdrawal.

Sigill Quality Systems has been certifying beef since the autumn of 2006 using the brand name label Swedish Sigill. IP Sigill (the certifying system for integrated production) encompasses the values: animal ethics, food safety, free range and environmental concerns. Product quality is not yet one of these values, and there is a variation in the quality of Swedish beef. Swedish Sigill wanted to investigate the factors that influence product quality, review which of the present regulations that have an influence on product quality and formulate new regulations with the purpose of enhancing the product quality (sensorial, technological and nutritional quality). A survey of quality parameters and factors that influence product quality was done in order to establish a scientific foundation to work from.

Audit is a service of society that takes place in the public interest. To guarantee the quality of auditing a quality control is done with predetermined time intervals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the concept quality and the procedure of the quality control and further to tie concepts like trust and ethics to the audit profession. To make the picture complete the paper also provides an insight regarding what deficiencies in quality, in other words failures, means to the audit profession. By performing semi-structured interviews with seven qualified auditors, active on different auditing firms in Skåne, substantial information was collected.

This essay aims to examine the meaning work at daily activity centers gives people with intellectual disabilities and the questions these people consider necessary to ask in quality surveys. This has been done by interviews with twelve respondents in various daily activitiy centers within a private care company in the Stockholm area. The theories that has been used to analyze the empirical data is SOC - sence of coherence, stigma and empowerment. The result shows that the meaning of daily activity is to create and maintain social contacts, feeling important and needed by others and an opportunity to feel ?normal? and like everybody else.