This is a study of students’ meaning making in web-based higher education courses. Conditions for students meaning-making change when interaction technology is used to support educational practices. Widened Participation policy activities often use web-based programs to attract “new” groups of more experienced students. The study used a communicative approach and focused on how previous experiences influenced actions and meaning making when students encountered challenges related to course objectives. Mediated Discourse Analysis was used to analyse asynchronous communication in 10 groups during 18 weeks of a 4-year part-time distance education program, training childminders for a Bachelor of Education, specialising in early childhood.  Appearances of meaning-making were traced to changes and breaks in student communication and presented as themes of orientations of actions namely:  • participation, the manifestation of presence, engagement in course work and the creation of space for engagement  • positioning, the creation of a student identity, the organisation of work, and the construction of a group culture  • reference, the orientation actions took in a nexus of practices. Where did students go for examples and to challenge theoretical concepts? • changing experience is a collection of moments of reification, when students came to make realisations of relevance to subject and task.  This study tells an alternative story to research on web-based education stating difficulties to achieve in-depth communication. The mediated environment offered strength for meaning-making and knowledge building as time, in the opportunity to develop new perspective through thinking and in encountering concepts again and again. As numbers, in the necessary impact of other’s experiences. And as distance, provided by the shift of actions in asynchronous communication, forcing thoughts into written language and making them accessible for reflection and criticism. If we are serious about widening participation we should regard students not only as numbers but instead as a valuable resource that may contribute to change in education. In this context, the combination of new groups of students and web-based scenarios provides future avenues for an informed pedagogical approach to higher education.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the People’s House in Bromölla as an arena for a plebeian public sphere. More specific, the analysis revolves around how the labour movement created a plebeian public sphere, the construction of the very arena and the activities there, including study circles, labour library, theatre plays, film showings, dance evenings and other amusements as parts of adult education among the working class people. It also comprises examinations of the labour movement’s acting in the local political arena, the labour movement’s connections with the local bourgeoisie on matters concerning politics and the People’s House. The main theoretical perspective is based on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of bourgeois public sphere, reformulated to a plebeian public sphere.

The adult education in study circles mainly focused on subjects related to the work in the local politics and in the trade union, i.e. for the activities in the public sphere. These parts of the adult education were primarily a matter for the male part of the labour movement. This mirrors the situation in politics and in the trade union, where foremost men were engaged. Beside the trade union and political studies, subjects like Swedish, English, Esperanto, mathematics and literature were common. From time to time socialism and Marxism were studied. The women mainly studied humanistic subjects with individual development and hold thus the vision of the education ideologists within the labour movement. In the 1940’s the study circles decreased, and finally, in the end of the 1950’s almost ceased. Despite this the education did not cease, but were replaced by music, singing, dancing and machine sewing courses arranged by commercial companies and aesthetic associations.

The People’s House was from the beginning open even for associations outside the labour movement. In the 1940’s and, in particularly, the 1950’s the People’s House became an assembly hall for a huge range of associations. Among the tenants were Free Church parishes, athletic associations, hobby associations, temperance societies, political parties from left to right, trade unions, authorities, companies, and the municipal of Bromölla. People’s house was also a place for wedding and birthday celebrations and other private parties. Among the more frequent tenants were Free Churches and music, singing and athletic associations, beside Bromölla municipal, which were a permanent tenant, for instance for the municipal library. The amount of associations from outside the labour movement among the tenants exceeded for some years in the end of 1950’s the labour movement’s meetings.

This cross class policy was a conscious strategy by the People’s House association, in order to be a cultural institution for all inhabitants in Bromölla. The municipal council of Bromölla was even a part of this policy when subsidizing the People’s House association. It was in accordance with the cross class and consensus policy which the social democratic movement by this time was an exponent of. The People’s House in Bromölla was thus an arena not only for the labour movement, but also for the entire society.

The family firm sector is volatile due to for example challenges associated with management and ownership succession. Family businesses in Sweden, as well as globally, make an important part of the economy. It is well known that successions are critical transition processes for these firms. While this problem has been approached mainly as an internal managerial or financial challenge, this dissertation discusses the social dimensions of how successors transform family firms and especially personal networks during successions. Triads are used to create understanding for succession processes; the successor and the C.E.O. always contribute to triads. The third (wo)man is another family member, a co-worker, or an external actor, frequently a customer. To make sense out of the triad, one must understand the individuals and their relations. Particularly the relation between the C.E.O. and the successor is being analyzed. Further internal and external relations and how they are being transferred and transformed in a triadic context during successions provide a context for the triads and are considered as well.

Accounts from four Swedish manufacturing family firms and their business partners show that the C.E.O.’s personal network infiltrates the environment, both internally and externally, and that the successor must earn trustworthiness to be able to transform the companies and the C.E.O.’s network. The trustworthiness seems to be easier to create on an external arena where the C.E.O. is not present. On that arena the successors can build their own platforms from where they can conquer other relations. It appears that the successor first has to show capability of creating their own external business relations before they can transform the existing internal and external network. Successors should also focus on working, for the family business, in new projects that contribute a new competence to the firm. When a family business is transformed identity development is crucial. The “child” must change its identity from being the next generation to be an obvious C.E.O. on own merits.

Keywords: family business, succession, trust, relation, triad, network, identity

Abstract

Olsson, Karin (2009). Den (över)levande demokratin. En idékritisk analys av demokratins reproducerbarhet i Robert Dahls tänkta värld. (Sustainable Democracy. Exploring the Idea of a Reproducible Democracy in the Theory of Robert A. Dahl). Acta Wexionensia 185/2009, ISSN: 1404-4307, ISBN: 978-91-7636-677-6. With a summary in English.

Everybody loves democracy. The problem is that while everybody calls himself democratic, the ideal form of democracy is hard to come by in the real world. But if we believe in democracy and believe that it is the best form of government, I argue that we should try to design a theory of democracy that is realisable – and reproducible. This thesis, then, focuses primarily on the question whether we find support in democratic theory for an idea of a self-reproducing democracy. It proceeds by means of an investigation of Robert A. Dahl’s theory of democracy. He is one of the most well-known and highly regarded theorists in the field of democratic research, whose work covers both normative and empirical analysis.

When analysing the reproducible democracy, I argue that it is essential to study both normative values and empirical assumptions: the values that count as intrinsic to democracy, the assumptions that are made about man, and the institutions that are needed for the realisable and reproducible democracy. In modern social science man is often pushed into the background. This is also the case in theories of democracy, even though man (the individual) is the one who has the right to vote, the one who has the autonomy to decide – the one who has to act democratically in order to preserve democracy.

The study yields the following findings. First, in Dahl’s theory political equality and autonomy come out as intrinsic values. Second, the assumptions made about man show that even if he seems to be ignored, he is always present. When Dahl construes his theory, he does it with full attention to man’s qualities, interests, manners of acting and reacting, and adaptability to the values of democracy. Third, the institutions needed to realise and reproduce democracy go further than the institutions of polyarchy. They need support from the judicial system, political culture, education and the market. Fourth, when it comes down to making democracy work and reproducing democracy, Dahl puts the full responsibility on man as he is not willing to allow too rigid constitutional mechanisms. Fifth, even though Dahl puts the emphasis on the empirical situation of the real world, he does not alter his normative ideals in order to make the theory more adaptive. For him, political equality and autonomy are imperative demands, too important to alter. And the only way to get full procedural democracy is to trust the democratic man.        

The usage of biofuel as well as wood fuel has increased in Sweden and all of Europe during recent decades, and there are several reasons to believe that this increase will continue. An important reason for this increase is that the environmental and climate problems caused by fossil fuels are becoming even more evident. By replacing fossil fuel with biofuel, the problem of emissions from, among others carbon dioxide and sulphur compounds can be alleviated. However, substitution requires in many cases high quality processed biofuel. An early stage in the processing of biofuel is drying. Previous work treats the possibility of drying wood fuel in an efficient and environmentally sustainable manner.

This thesis studies the bed drying technique, conducted both experimentally and through modeling of the drying process. The experimental work is based on continuous temperature measurements in the fuel bed and provides characteristics of the drying zone that develops in the bed during drying. The character of the drying zone is affected by both the qualities of the fuel and the operating parameters, and is decisive regarding the possibility of making the drying more efficient, i.e. optimize the usage of energy and produce a fuel with low and homogeneous moisture content.

A mathematical simulation model has been developed to increase the understanding of bed drying. The model is based on fundamental physical principles and is made up of five differential equations that describe vapor flow, air flow, the fuel’s moisture content, and the bed’s pressure and temperature. The modeling work complements the experimental work and a simulation of the temperature distribution, pressure and the drying zone’s dispersion is in agreement with the experimental result.

The drying of wood can signify an environmental and human health risk, since volatile organic compounds (VOC) are emitted during drying. The thesis studies these emissions with regards to type and quantity. The measurements show that the majority of the emitted compounds from Norway spruce and Scots pine are volatile monoterpenes, but also that other compounds are emitted, especially higher terpenes. Further, major differences between how the compounds are emitted and the quantities of the emitted compounds from heartwood and sapwood are shown. There are also large differences between types of wood, i.e. spruce and pine. It can be stated that both emission rate and total amount of emitted compounds increase with an increase in temperature.

To reduce VOC emissions, the drying temperature should be maintained low. To develop an efficient bed drying process for wood biofuels, additional parameters must be analyzed further and weighed against each other. Based on the experimental method and the simulation model presented here, the drying can be optimized towards a more efficient use of thermal energy and a low and even moisture content in the dried biofuel.

This thesis concerns the mediation of history in a public arena in society, namely in historical exhibitions in museums. The foci of the thesis are exhibitions on migration history, cultural encounters, “Us” and “the Others”, and in particular how relations based on the principles of class, gender and ethnicity are mediated. The research concerns two exhibitions – "Afrikafararna" (The Travellers to Africa) and "Kongospår" (Traces of Congo).

In this thesis museums are viewed as arenas for public education and meaning-making. It explores how the historical contents as well as the forms of mediation in the exhibitions correspond to the task of promoting democracy that has been assigned to Swedish museums. This task is expressed in the intentions of the respective museums, in the general policies on culture and also in the policy documents for schools. Therefore the thesis also explores how pupils and teachers understand the mediation of history and use the museum as a source for learning.

Exhibitions are regarded in this thesis as mediation processes of history. Three distinct phases can be seen in this process – the phase of production, the phase of mediation and the phase of reception. People connected to the different phases, such as curators, producers, museum educators, and pupils, have been interviewed. These interviews show how conditions, convictions and scope for action influence how the stories of migration and cultural encounters are told and understood. The contents of the exhibitions are analysed from a perspective of class, gender and ethnicity. Furthermore, the limitations and possibilities for the visitors to intensify their historical consciousness are discussed.

The study shows how economic conditions and access to historical source material influence the way history is mediated, but also, and to a very large extent, convictions on pedagogy and concepts of history among museum staff. The latter two are determining factors when it is made clear that the way the historical source material is used results in the fact that history is mediated in a way that does not correspond to the intentions and goals to promote democratic values, such as equality, and active democratic readiness for action.

The study shows that the exhibitions in question mediate patterns of subordination and asymmetrical relations between women and men and between Swedes/Scandinavians and Africans in their mediation of history. There are sometimes very distinct lines between “Us” and “the Others”. One of the exhibitions offers more space for individual meaning-making and reflection than the other, however, because of its problematization of the occurrence of African artefacts in Scandinavia and because there are more stories and more voices in the exhibition.

The interviews with teachers and pupils show that the visits to the exhibitions are often isolated events that are rarely incorporated into the students’ education in a prolonged theme or perspective. Several students uncritically accepted the mediation in the exhibition, others were provoked and challenged, but the students had little opportunity to discuss these experiences in either the museum or in school. In summing up, several of the results of the analysis show that the mediation of history in the exhibitions cannot be described as corresponding to the demands of a democratic conception of education.

This thesis consists of four self-contained essays on discrimination in hiring.

Essay I (co-authored with Dan-Olof Rooth) present evidence of ethnic discrimination in the recruitment process by sending fictitious applications to real job openings. Applications with identical skills were randomly assigned Middle Eastern or Swedish-sounding names and applications with a Swedish name receive fifty percent more callbacks for an interview. We extend previous analyses by adding register and interview information on firms/recruiters to the experimental data. We find that male recruiters and workplaces with fewer than twenty employees less often call applications with a Middle Eastern name for an interview.

Essay II extends previous field experiments that study ethnic discrimination in the labour market by comparing discrimination of first and second generation immigrants from the same ethnic group. Qualitatively identical resumes, belonging to first and second generation immigrants from the Middle East, were sent to employers in Sweden that had advertised for labour. The findings suggest, somewhat unexpectedly, that first and second generation immigrants have essentially the same probability of being invited to a job interview, which in turn is significantly lower than the probability of invitation to interview for natives. Accordingly, the factor leading to discrimination in employers responses appears to be ethnicity per se and not an applicant’s country of birth, foreign mother-tongue, and foreign education.

Essay III (co-authored with Dan-Olof Rooth) utilizes the extensive media coverage that occurred when the data collection of essay I and II were only halfway finished. This informed the employers that their hiring practices were being monitored by such situation testing. These unique events and the data from the situation tests are utilized to perform a difference-in-differences analysis of whether discrimination decreased after the media coverage. The results reveal no sign that employers changed their hiring practices after they became aware of the risk of being included in such a situation test. The policy implication of this relates to the fact that EU countries vary in the extent to which they allow situation test results to constitute evidence of ethnic discrimination in court. Our results suggest that the detection risk alone is not sufficient, but must be combined with some penalty to become effective, if authorities wish to use situation testing as a discrimination prevention strategy.

Essay IV studies whether sex discrimination is the cause of sex segregation in the Swedish labor market. The correspondence testing (CT) method was used, which entails two qualitatively identical applications, one with a female name and one with a male name, being sent to employers advertising for labor. The results show that, on average, females have a somewhat higher callback rate to interview in female-dominated occupations, while in male-dominated occupations there is no evidence of any difference. This suggests that the bulk of the sex segregation prevailing in the Swedish labor market cannot be explained by discrimination in hiring. Instead, the explanation is likely to be found on the supply side.

This thesis consists of five essays on the economic outcomes of immigrants and homosexuals on the labour and housing market.

Essay I evaluates the effect of an in-work benefit on the labour supply of single immigrant women by means of simulation. Although, on average, there is no significant effect, we find that the in-work benefit increases the working hours of single women with low incomes and slightly decreases the working hours of those with high incomes. The increase in working hours is primarily a result of increased participation. As expected, the positive effect is largest for the immigrant groups with the lowest participation rates and lowest labour incomes.

Essay II studies intergenerational transmissions in self-employment. The results show that immigrants transfer general human capital over three generations in the sense that individuals whose fathers and grandfathers are self-employed have a higher self-employment propensity. For natives, only the father’s self-employment affects the son’s probability of becoming self-employed. Furthermore, the results show that natives transfer specific human capital from father to son, which increases the probability of sons becoming self-employed in the industry in which their fathers are self-employed.

Essay III explores the effect of self-employment experience on subsequent earnings and the employment of male and female immigrant wage earners. We find that, relative to continued wage employment, self-employment is associated with lower earnings and difficulties in returning to paid employment for both immigrant men and women. The effect is less severe for natives. Among immigrant groups, the results give little support that self-employment experience improves earnings and employment prospects compared to experience from wage employment. 

Essay IV applies a field experiment to investigate how increasing the information about applicants affects discrimination against male Arab/Muslim applicants on the rental housing market. The Arab/Muslim applicants received fewer responses from the landlords than did the Swedish applicants. All of the applicants gained by providing more information about themselves, but the magnitude of discrimination against the Arab/Muslim applicants remained unchanged, indicating that increasing the amount of applicant information will not reduce discrimination.

Essay V studies possible discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market using a field experiment. We let two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, apply for vacant apartments on the Internet. We then explored if there were differences in callbacks, invitations to further contact and/or showings. The results show no indication of differential treatment of lesbians by landlords.

This thesis consists of three self-contained empirical essays related to the stock markets in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

In Essay I, the time-series dynamics of liquidity on the Scandinavian stock exchanges between January 1993 and June 2005 are studied with liquidity indices. We observe that on all Scandinavian stock exchanges, liquidity has increased during the examined period. However, the monthly variation in liquidity is large. Moreover, within these order-driven stock exchanges, the relationship between the market variables return, volatility, trading activity, and liquidity is examined in a VAR framework. In line with previous findings on the U.S. stock markets, we find that an increase in return predicts higher liquidity, that there is a negative relationship between volatility and liquidity, and that a positive shock in trading activity predicts increasing liquidity. However, in comparison to previous studies on U.S. stock exchanges, our results indicate that liquidity is more dependent on trading activity in the Scandinavian order-driven markets. Finally, the linkage between these stock exchanges in terms of liquidity is explored with VAR. In these VAR, we find evidence of liquidity spillover between the Scandinavian stock exchanges.

Essay II evaluates 14 macroeconomic variables' ability to forecast changes in monthly liquidity on the Scandinavian order-driven stock exchanges. Every macroeconomic variable is evaluated both out-of-sample and in-sample and against three different benchmark models of market variables and asymmetries concerning up and down markets. Policy rate on Copenhagen, broad money growth on Oslo, and short-term interest rate and flows from mutual funds on Stockholm significantly improve the out-of-sample forecasts of liquidity at these exchanges. However, most proposed macroeconomic variables can be rejected as forecasters of liquidity on the Scandinavian stock exchanges. There are many variables that predict in-sample liquidity that do not forecast out-of-sample. This stresses the importance of conducting out-of-sample tests when examining whether macroeconomic variables predict liquidity. In addition, this is the first paper confirming that stock market liquidity can be forecast out-of-sample.

Essay III examines whether the pairwise comovement between stocks quoted on the Stockholm stock exchange can be correctly quantified by the Gaussian copula, i.e., by linear correlation. Two different methods are used to test whether the dependence on the Swedish stock market can be modeled by the Gaussian copula. From these tests, we come to the conclusion that the Gaussian copula is not an appropriate choice of copula for the Swedish stock market. We also come to the same conclusion when observing sector and industry indices on the Swedish stock market. However, if performing a GARCH filtering of the return series, there is a substantial decrease in the number of pairs of either stocks or indices for which the Gaussian copula can be rejected. For the two test methods, a notable difference in the rejection rate of the Gaussian copula can also be observed.

Technology evolution throughout history has initiated many changes in different aspects of human activities. Learning, as one of the most representative human activities has also been subject to these changes. Nowadays, the use of information and communication technologies has considerably changed the way people learn and collaborate. These changes have been accompanied by new approaches to support learning using a wide range of mobile devices, software applications and different communication platforms. In these technology rich landscapes, the notion of context emerges as a crucial component to be considered for the design and technical implementation of technology-enhanced learning environments. The main research question investigated in this thesis relates to the use of different context instantiations for the design and development of innovative technology-enhanced learning environments.This thesis is a collection of eight papers that describe the results of the research efforts conducted in four different experimental cases during a period of four years. These experiments have been designed and developed as part of two research projects. The theoretical foundations that guided this research were based on the view of context and interaction from a learning theory, human-computer-interaction perspective, as well as dimensional data modelling techniques. Different methodological approaches, (such as action-oriented, design-based research and case study) have been used while investigating the main research question. The main contribution that this thesis offers to the research community is a conceptual context model accompanied by a dimensional data model that can be used as a design tool for embedding learning activities in context. In the four trials that encompass my empirical work, the conceptual model proposed in the thesis guided the design and technical development of the different novel technology-enhanced learning activities. The outcomes of these efforts provided various insights regarding the use of different context instantiations that have implications for the design and development of these environments. This thesis advocates that computational context attributes should be used as metadata descriptors that would potentially promote personalization and interoperability of digital learning content. Content personalization offers opportunities for personalized learning that increases learners’ engagement and eventually could lead to better learning results. Furthermore, the research and industrial community could use the context model developed in this thesis as a guiding tool to promote the creation of new ways to personalize services and technologies.

The ubiquitous enzyme dUTPase hydrolyzes dUTP into dUMP and pyrophosphate, preventing DNA fragmentation and cell death due to accumulation of dUTP. Inhibitors of dUTPase could serve as drugs in the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases. This thesis presents five studies. A mutational study on the Escherichia coli dUTPase (S72A) provides new insights about the catalytic principles of the homotrimeric dUTPases. A model is presented in which transition state formation is associated with a rotation of the conserved Ser72 side chain. The model can explain the strict order of deamination and hydrolysis catalyzed by the bifunctional dCTP deaminase:dUTPases. The S72A/D90N double mutant is currently investigated. Preliminary data indicate that this form preserves the binding properties of the S72A mutant but is completely inactive, making it attractive for structural studies. In the remaining studies we compare the binding of substrate analogues to the human, the E. coli and the equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) homotrimeric dUTPases. One study concerns 2´,3´-dideoxy-UTP (ddUTP) and shows that removal of the 3´-hydroxyl group increases KM, ten times with the cellular dUTPases and fifty times with the viral dUTPase, but does not affect kcat with any of these enzymes. Another study concerns the inhibitory effects of 3´-azido-2´,3´-dideoxy-UTP. This derivative binds to the bacterial dUTPase but not to the other forms making it a potential lead for the development of antibacterial dUTPase inhibitors. Yet another study investigates two uracil derivatives. Both compounds are found to inhibit the human, the bacterial but not the viral dUTPase. The inhibition is shown to be competitive.

During the past years, the usage of wood as construction material in multistory applications has increased. In Germany and Sweden, various activities have been, and are about to be performed, to accentuate and improve the position of wooden multistory houses. In line with that, this thesis tries to contribute to the understanding of how consumers perceive durable products; in the contextual frame of how German and Swedish consumers perceive wooden multistory houses.

It was hypothesized that consumers’ perceptions on durable products differ, depending on their age, income, national and within-country habitation. Based on the Means-End Chain Theory, the Association Pattern Technique has been further developed to collect and analyze data for two samples. In Germany and Sweden, 31 respectively 34 laddering interviews have been carried out which formed the base for a survey-study in each country. Here, 229 surveys were received from German, and 503 from Swedish respondents.

The results show that age, income, national and within-country habitation have significant impact on consumers’ perceptions of wooden multistory houses. Moreover, the extension of the Association Pattern Technique was validated. It allowed for additional data to be gathered, which can be regarded as rather important, since it appeared in the most dominant Means-End Chains of the respondents in both Germany and Sweden. This helps to understand consumers’ underlying reasons why one product is favoured over another.

In 2003, sixteen Swedish humanists proposed the idea of a communicative democracy. Same year, leading Scandinavian organizational theory scholars proposed that Scandinavian welfare states efforts to revitalize their democracies can be understood as ”a movement toward the development of a more charismatic and communicative model of leadership [where] focus has shifted to the organization of communication processes and the necessity of including several viewpoints in decision processes and public debates” (Byrkjeflot, 2003). The sixteen humanists proposed that the core of this way of making sense of post-industrial ICT societies could be understood trough the concepts of technology, democracy and academy (Kylhammar & Battail, 2003).

In agreement with such line of thinking, the point of departure for this study is that a communicative democracy hardly can be generative without a fourth concept, the entrepreneur, which infuses agency to the humanist’s promising but rather structurally oriented conceptualization. The entrepreneurial agency is far from being an unproblematic one, though. As a celebrated form of agency in contemporary societies, to such an extent that the entrepreneur ”stands as a powerful creature capable of summoning the energies of the market society through sheer will power, creating the magic of entrepreneurship” (Rehn & Taalas, 2004), one better think twice about the sort of magic brought in.

Invited here, with the purpose of empirically describing and theoretically introducing communicative entrepreneurship, is the rough-and-tumble secular magic of sports as entertainment. Guttmann (1978) declared sports being ”among the most discussed and least understood phenomena of our time”, a catchy but relevant slogan for an industry that at one hand generates an intense communicative presence in contemporary societies – “Sporting metaphors saturate everyday language […] sporting expressions pepper political, economic, educational and social discussions” (Booth, 2004) – but on the other hand is in the outskirts of the nowadays so embraced creative industry, as sports was excluded from the formative efforts undertaken by the Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen) when the Swedish version of the creative industry, the experience industry, was generated via innovative forms of communicative entrepreneurship.

This tension between the proper and the grotesque is intriguing. Therefore – being a life philosophy for thousands of athletes and millions of their followers, an extremely detailed applied science, a globally omnipresent form of popular culture, a practice that since the rise of Olympism discursively is rooted in religion, and a multibillion dollar industry in which many stakeholders invest and extract their shares – the multidimensional practice of sports and entertainment and its communicative capacity is scrutinized via a close reading methodology termed genealogical storytelling (Hjorth, 2004).

The overall aim of the present study is to investigate how teachers deal with linguistic and cultural otherness in the French foreign language classroom at upper secondary school level in Sweden. The foreign language classroom is seen as a cultural meeting place where images of otherness are natural elements. In this respect, otherness should be regarded as one cultural aspect among others implying human as well as language phenomena. Analyzing the way in which the teachers in the study mediate this otherness to their students is expected to contribute to the pedagogical debate on intercultural understanding in language teaching and learning.

The study is based on empirical data consisting of video recorded observations in three different classrooms. One class (class A) is treated as primary data where two activities are especially focused, namely working with texts and working with grammar. The verbal interaction from these activities has been transcribed and analyzed qualitatively.

The first step of analysis concerns the learning aims which are transmitted to the students in the teacher’s introduction to the two activities. The second step deals with the teacher’s procedures to involve the students in the construction of knowledge which focuses on linguistic and cultural otherness.

Finally, a comparative perspective is adopted. On the one hand, the two different activities are compared with each other, while on the other hand, the findings from class A are compared with class B and C. From a dialogical point of view, the way in which the classroom setting and the teachers’ acting can favour intercultural understanding is discussed.

The results of the analyses highlight the fact that teachers seem to pay more attention to linguistic otherness than to cultural otherness. Furthermore, the study shows that the foreign language classroom has a dialogical potential when it comes to human relations and discourse. More attention could be paid to these aspects of teaching in order to pave the way for better intercultural understanding. The teachers in the present study seem to favour dialogical relationships in the classroom and neglect discursive issues in the situation. Our conclusion is that the way in which teachers deal with otherness is tradition-bound. Texts, for instance, even those with an obvious intercultural content, are treated as pre-texts for studying linguistic phenomena. Cultural phenomena, when dealt with, are limited to a product paradigm and are transmitted without reflection and with no apparent awareness of any intercultural understanding.

This thesis sheds some light on the duality between time-rich and time-poor living conditions and examines in which way this duality/polarisation paves the way for new patterns of inequality. The purpose is to explore the living conditions of two groups in society: those who are established in the labour force and who experience great demands on their efficiency and educational level and those who are unwanted and who do not have a natural place in the labour market.

Theoretically, time geography shows a diversity of time patterns and time space restrictions between different life forms in everyday life. The conclusion contradicts the understanding of time as a monolithic concept. The results show how working time standards are essential to understand the access to time and economic resources that time-rich and time-poor life forms have. This is something that not only poses questions about household strategies and individual needs, but also shifts the perspective to social positions and demands of society.

In a process analysis of Swedish working time policies I investigate how structural policy change, from a social discourse closely related to Swedish welfare reforms, is moving towards an economic discourse motivated by financial arguments. By doing so, the political measures for solving working time related problems in today’s flexible working life appear to be contradictory. On the one hand we find time-poor people in the labour market mainly supported by tax reductions and private time saving solutions while on the other we find time-rich people mainly supported by activation programmes and/or welfare benefits. It is thus a working time regime and policy strategy that obviously disregards these two sides of the coin.

The European Union is a relatively new actor and powerful force on the working time agenda. The European Commissions’ policy solution is Flexicurity. A policy analysis shows that flexicurity has a life course perspective where social arguments have a central position in terms of security in a flexible working life. In comparison, Sweden is moving in the opposite direction by leaving social arguments behind. Conclusions show that the economization of time creates vulnerabilities and tensions between time-rich and time-poor living conditions. In looking at time as a welfare factor, traditional ways of solving old problems are being challenged by a policy that can open up for new kinds of welfare solutions that value work and life time patterns both inside and outside the labour market.

Acoustic or electro-magnetic scattering in a waveguide with varying direction and cross-section can be re-formulated as a two-dimensional scattering problem, provided that the variations take place in only one dimension at a time. By using the so-called Building Block Method, it is possible to construct the scattering properties of a combination of scatterers when the properties of each scatterer are known. Hence, variations in the waveguide geometry or in the boundary conditions can be treated one at a time. Using the Building Block Method, the problem takes the form of the Helmholtz equation for stationary waves in a waveguide of infinite length and with smoothly varying geometry and boundary conditions. A conformal mapping is used to transform the problem into a corresponding problem in a straight horizontal waveguide, and by expanding the field in Fourier trigonometric series, the problem can be reformulated as an infinite-dimensional ordinary differential equation. From this, numerically solvable differential equations for the reflection and transmission operators are derived. To be applicable in the Building Block Method, the numerical conformal mapping must be constructed such that the direction of the boundary curve can be controlled. At the channel ends ,it is an indispensable requirement, that the two boundary curves are (at least) asymptotically parallel and straight. Furthermore, to achieve bounded operators in the differential equations, the boundary curves must satisfy different regularity conditions, depending on the boundary conditions. In this work, several methods to accomplish such conformal mappings are presented. The Schwarz–Christoffel mapping, which is a natural starting point and for which also efficient numerical software exists, can be modified in different ways in order to achieve polygons with rounded corners. We present algorithms by which the parameters in the mappings can be determined after such modifications. We show also how the unmodified Schwarz–Christoffel mapping can be used for regions with a smooth boundary. This is done by constructing an appropriate outer polygon to the considered region.Finally, we introduce one method that is not Schwarz–Christoffel-related, by showing how one of the so-called zipper algorithms can be used for waveguides. Keywords: waveguides, building block method, numerical conformalmappings, Schwarz–Christoffel mapping, rounded corners method, approximate curve factors, outer polygon method, boundary curvature, zipper method, geodesic algorithm, acoustic wave scattering, electro-magnetic wave scattering

This thesis is focusing on the lived experience of dementia. Both living with a partner as well as living alone. There is no unequivocal picture of how it is to live with dementia and few studies have been carried out in homes of afflicted persons. A deeper understanding of how it is to live with dementia can be a good starting-point for caring and the organisation of care. 

The aim of this thesis is to describe, clarify and explain the lived experience of dementia from a lifeworld theoretical point of view. Another aim is to illuminate how decision makers look upon persons with dementia, their life and their care. Interviews and observations have been used to collect data. Participating informants have been couples with one partner suffering from dementia, persons with dementia living alone, politicians, administrators and social workers. Data was analysed with a phenomenological and a hermeneutical approach.

To live as a couple where one part has dementia (study 1) implies to live in a heteronomous existence where both the person with dementia and the partner become strangers in a world that should be the most well-known and familiar. The couple’s existence is narrowed and controlled by the impact of the dementia disease and the existence  is characterised of hopelessness and homelessness.

To live alone with dementia (study 2) means to live with a broken identity when the person with dementia gradually loses the memory of himself and his life. It becomes a life where the world of the individual is reduced to a quiet background that does not demand attention. The person with dementia does not longer know how he or she should relate to the world. The existence is characterised by a strong sense of loneliness and only a vague knowledge of the situation. The person with dementia longs for other people and gets a sense of boredom in the existence.

The comprehensive interpretation (study 3) shows that life with dementia is characterised by a gradual loss of meaning in life due to a disturbed intentionality. With disturbed intentionality the person with dementia gets increasingly more difficulties in understanding the meaning of the use of everyday objects. The person with dementia fights this and tries to create meaningfulness in the existence – something which gets very difficult and strenuous in time, since even the easiest everyday chores have to be thought through to make sense and even to be accomplished. The effort can in time become overpowering for the person with dementia who then stops doing the chores and becomes passive.

Politicians, administrators and social workers (study 4) are well aware that dementia gives suffering to the afflicted and the partner. The care is not designed to meet their needs for home care, and the decision makers don’t know how to change this. The person with dementia becomes like an object when the social workers don’t includes them in a dialogue about their needs and care. The partner is left alone in solving difficult problems and in making difficult decisions.

The theory of intentionality can help the professionals in the care of persons with dementia. By helping the cared-for-person to ‘stretch the intentional threads’ the caregivers can give the person a possibility to be rooted in the world. A care that supports intentionality and identity and reaches all the way in to the homes of the person with dementia would improve their situation and increase their well-being. This is possible when engaging the person in every-day chores that promote meaning. This kind of care contributes to the possibility for the person with dementia to be rooted in language, time and space.

This study examines the implementation of Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in health care organisations. BSC, a management control model based on measurements in different perspectives, has become one of the most popular performance measurement models during the last two decades and widely adopted in practice. However, studies have noticed that models are rarely used in the same way in different settings. From the perspective of Scandinavian institutionalism, a model that is moved from one place to another has been "translated." Translation is a process in which an abstract idea is transferred into an object, developed into practical use, and stabilised into an institution. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how a management control model influences and is influenced by the medical professional context. The ambition is to investigate how BSC has been translated in the Swedish and the Canadian health care contexts. Furthermore the purpose is to develop our understanding of measurements in professional organisations and to develop our understanding of the translation process.

The study shows that the main purpose of implementing BSC in the health care organisations is to support improvements in the quality of care. Whereas a free translation process in the Swedish case allowed actors to interpret and reinterpret the model and to create specific performance measurements for reporting professional performance, a controlled translation process in the Canadian case resulted in medical professionals being unable to reinterpret the model. Instead, BSC came to represent the private company's way of acting, declaring disciplinary accountability and shifting interest from public administration and towards the business firm. Based on the findings, this study stresses that a model can materialize both in the forms of practical use and talk, and that different translations can result in disputes and negotiations among actors with different interests. This study also analyses and develops the concept of transparency, and suggests that actors will use different performance measurements depending on what type of transparency (openness, visibility or hyaline) is requested. Finally, it is suggested that disciplinary accountability may result in actors focusing on finding the perfect measurements, whereas socializing form of accountability may create a greater focus on reciprocal accountability for improvements.

The thesis emanates from a comparison between three points of time in the history of the Swedish social democratic party (SAP); 1889, 1905 and 1933. The comparison is partly about the political and organizational situation of the party, and partly about the goals the party expressed. The problem that I study, based on this comparison, is the identified changes of the party’s hierarchy of goals.

I argue that goal change should be viewed as a process, not as a decision. There is no simple rationality in goal formulations or in the relation between goals and practices where the practices are shaped by the goals.

My case shows the importance of the opposite causal direction where the practices reshape the goals. The organization formulates goals and intermediate goals. These are connected to practices directed towards the intermediate goals. The more resources the organization attach to these practices, the more difficult it is to change them and the higher status in the organizational activity they will get. The primary goals can still be important as justification, but their role will be reduced to a ritual rhetoric without practical significance. They will have to be reinterpreted and reformulated in correspondence to the practices in order to regain a practical significance in the activity of the organization. Thereby we have a practical goal change, which shouldn’t be confused with at rhetoric goal change. The rhetoric of the organization can remain unchanged even though no practices are directed towards the rhetorically important goals.

One implication of this is that goals cannot be understood by their formulations only. The importance and meaning of the formulations will change over time and should therefore be related to the context and the organization’s position in the organizational field. When we study an organization over time it will be hard to understand it adequately if we don’t relate the organizational changes to the context.

The overall aim of the present thesis is to contribute to the knowledge in young people´s experiences, thoughts and norms regarding sexually transmitted infections (STI) and sexual risk-taking. The specific aims are two-fold. The first aim is to explain and understand young Swedish men and women´s lived experience of an STI, in this case genital warts (I, II). The second is to explain and understand the values and attitudes of young men and women to sexual risk-taking (III) in relation to perceptions of gender (IV).

  The theoretical perspectives are a reflective lifeworld approach, hermeneutic and gender perspectives. The thesis is based on individual interviews (I, II) and focus groups (III, IV). 

The results show that a young person infected by an STI, will experience encounters at different levels. A person with an STI is forced to meet him/herself and their own prejudices. Loss of innocence is highly significant and symbolic for women, while other person´s attitudes are more important for men (I, II). Also, being a disease carrier is of great significance, which has an impact on their views of future meaningful relationships (II).   

  Sexual risk-taking, such as it was expressed in the focus groups with young people, revealed a pattern that is described as a ‘game’. In that game, a dialogue might feel more intimate than intercourse. These teenagers often view their one night stand partners as objects, as opposed to love relationships where they are viewed as subjects, i.e. persons to be cared for. Engaging in sexual risk-taking often starts at a club where these teenagers pretend that they are spontaneous (III).

This game is further illuminated in a secondary analysis with a gender perspective. There are frequent misunderstandings between young men and women that are based on gender constructions, which derive from lack of communication. Hence, they have to take part in a balancing act while shaping their sexual identity and trying to maintain their self-esteem. For these young women, this also concerns not getting a bad reputation. In this act of balance, it is difficult to discuss sexuality and how to protect one’s sexual health (IV).

The discussion emphasizes that a professional caring dialogue with young people about STI: s and sexual-risk taking must have reference in the young person´s own reality. Thus, professional health care workers who meet a young person infected with an STI appear to face a challenging task. This involves helping reduce anxiety by defusing the situation, and at the same time to make the person understand the importance of using a condom in order to prevent STI: s.

The purpose of this study is to discuss German Nazism and Nazi Germany from the point of view of two specific representatives, namely, labour and capital. This has been facilitated by analysing the content of the Swedish Seamen’s Union’s newspaper, The Seafarer [Sjömannen] and its union counterpart, the Swedish Shipowners Association’s periodical, Scandinavian Shipping Gazette [Svensk Sjöfarts Tidning], from November 1932 up to and including 1945. The shipping industry was chosen because trade was of central importance to the Swedish economy and to relations with Nazi Germany. Direct contact with Nazi Germany meant that the organisations were kept up-to-date about what was happening there.

A qualitative analysis of texts and images constitutes the major part of the study. This is complemented by a quantitative examination of the intensity of reporting on Nazi Germany.

There were enormous differences between the two papers, both in terms of intensity and bias, with regard to the Nazi challenge. While The Seafarer described both Nazism and Nazis in strongly negative terms, the Scandinavian Shipping Gazette chose to remain silent. The Seafarer encouraged counteractions like demonstrations, strikes, boycotts and sanctions, whereas the Scandinavian Shipping Gazette considered such measures to be “undemocratic” and argued against them. The material in The Seafarer is strongly propagandist and always keenly opposed to Nazism and anti-Semitism. The paper served as an anti-Nazi mouth-piece. The means of expression range from poems, drawings and illustrations via highly factual and biased reports to weightier multi-page ideological analyses. All in all, the Nazi regime is described as one of violence and terror that is bent on stifling both the working class and people of other “races”. In sharp contrast, the study shows that the Scandinavian Shipping Gazette dedicates itself to describing events and developments taking place in Nazi Germany.

There was no class-transgressing national ideology or policy within the shipping industry with which to facilitate an understanding of the Nazi challenge. In the study, class affinity has proved to be an important, and clearly distinct, factor in the approach to Nazism.

The research interest in this thesis concerns novice university students of mathematics. The aim of my thesis is to understand the transition between mathematics studies at upper secondary school and university from a student perspective. It is a qualitative study of five teacher students during their initial university studies in mathematics. The students were interviewed before beginning their mathematics studies, during their courses and observed during lectures, during problem solving lessons and while working with mathematics out of class both individually and with fellow students. The transcriptions from the preliminary interviews have been analyzed using methods inspired by Grounded Theory. The main result consists of three categories that describe students’ learning of mathematics.

Mathematical learning objects refer to students’ conceptions of the main goals and/or contents of studying mathematics, for example their views of the subject, the usefulness of knowing mathematics and what is needed to learn mathematics. Students’ mathematical learning objects should be considered as an individual and relational phenomenon between the student and his or hers mathematics studies that can change over time.

Mathematical resources relate to phenomena and objects that students use to approach and possibly acquire various mathematical learning objects. The teacher, fellow students, the textbook and own preliminary knowledge are some examples of entities that students may use as mathematical resources. These entities become mathematical resources only when the students use them in relation to mathematical learning objects. 

The third category, student acting as a learner, captures students’ actions, intentions and conceptions in relation to learning mathematics. Students use different mathematical resources to acquire different mathematical learning objects. This is expressed in students’ actions and reasoning, which serve as empirical data for understanding the student acting as a learner.

The three categories are theoretical concepts that elucidate essential aspects of learning and teaching of mathematics as seen from a student perspective and serve as a foundation for a theoretical framework that may be used to describe the transition. A theoretical description of the transition has been obtained by investigating how the respective categories, and the relations between the categories, change or endure during the transition. Results from the analysis of subsequent interviews and observations indicate that the transition can be understood in terms of an increasing gap between mathematical learning objects and mathematical resources, a reorientation of mathematical learning objects and a requirement of supplementing mathematical resources.

Anderberg, Mats & Dahlberg, Mikael (2009). Strukturerade intervjuer inom missbruksvården – som en grund för kunskapsutveckling (Structured interviews in substance abuse treatment - as a foundation for the development of knowledge).

In the discussion on knowledge development in social work, structured interviews have attracted an increasing amount of attention. The aim of this thesis is to examine and analyze how structured interviews can serve as a basis in the compilation and development of knowledge for practice and research in addiction treatment. More precisely, it means a problematization of the methodological issues that are of central importance in studying treatment outcomes, in which structured interviews form the basis. The methodological aspects in focus here are scientific concepts such as reliability, validity and specific factors in the evaluation of treatment interventions. A further objective is to outline a model for analysis when compiling and evaluating treatment outcome.

The five empirical studies have been conducted in their natural context, in organisations in which structured interviews with clients are carried out as an everyday routine and used for e.g. treatment planning. The structured interview DOK (a Swedish abbreviation for Documentation of clients) is used as a basis and an example for the empirical studies in this thesis.

The validation studies show that the DOK interview generally attains a good level of reliability and validity, but also contains a small number of variables that do not live up to the requirements which may be imposed. Deficiencies in operationalization and question construction seem to have a large impact. Another conclusion is that it is possible to carry out validation studies, where each variable is examined separately and evaluated with the aid of both sound methodological starting points and relevant statistical theory. Another of the central questions, the thesis addresses, is how structured interviews can be used as a basis for evaluation of treatment. The two studies which highlight this issue show that it is obvious that structured interviews are suitable for such a purpose, through its standardized form and multi-dimensional nature.

Validation of structured interviews or evaluation of social interventions should not be reduced to single numbers or values. The multidimensional nature of the structured interview shall also be reflected in the results and analysis. The thesis presents an analysis model for evaluating treatment outcome in relation to two empirical examples and foregoing theoretical starting points. Our view is that structured interviews can provide a link between practice and research and thus contribute to the development of knowledge in social work and substance abuse treatment.

This study addresses how political and professional claims directed at teachers change, and in many ways challenge teachers’ professional autonomy, as well as affect preconditions for meaning-making in pedagogic practices. Focus is placed on political steering and its implications for teacher education and teachers’ work in schools. Professional tensions between claims for system-oriented success de-fined as goal achievement versus a communicative understanding are analysed within a conceptual framework of steering and meaning. Based on official educational policy documents as well as teachers’ development projects the analysis revolves around issues concerning core competencies in teacher education and professionalisation processes. The empirical material comprises the Swedish 2001-teacher education reform and the Swedish National Higher Education Agency’s criticism of that part of teacher education which is obligatory for all teacher students (AUO). Moreover, grounds for educational policy that lead to the introduction of individual development plans (IUP) in school are analysed. Additionally, comments on circulated proposals submitted by universities and teacher organisations in connection with Bologna and the IUP-reforms are subject to analysis. In terms of methodology, the study primarily draws upon theories of communicative action, critical discourse analysis and theories of the professions. The results indicate that emphasis in educational policy is placed on the clarification of goals, progression and assessment practices in schools and teacher edu-cation. Thus teachers and teacher educators need to address functional steering claims which demand commitment and loyalty for political reforms. This entails that teachers’ professional autonomy is restricted. Teachers are encouraged to take difficult decisions and act strategically in order to maximise the pedagogic outcome based on economic and political claims for excellence, collaboration, and a clear-cut steering direction. Professionalism now appears to connote quality control by way of more specified formulations and assessments towards learning outcomes. Political rhetoric stipulates as essential that teachers determine knowledge progression and boundaries between the various exam and knowledge levels. Teachers are also to expound internal documentation in order to fulfil system-related claims. The study illustrates how conditions and preconditions emanate from shared profes-sional considerations, competencies and convictions, and that teachers need to be able to discuss these. However, this is challenged by a continuously increasing management by documents. In light of recentralised steering, claims are directed at teachers who are now to create transparency, quantifiable criteria for assessment and employability. Based on the teachers’ development projects, the results indicate that teachers are critical of how the education system is subjected to increasing pressure due to a stream of reforms and evaluations. Politicisation and economisation of education underscore a need for pragmatic and strategic actions within the profession. In contrast to experiences of political lack of vision, impellent user orientation and marketisation, universities and teachers claim that critical communicative-oriented pedagogy boost professional autonomy. Moreover, the study indicates that teachers’ positions and professional identities vary depending on the perceived validity of the political claims. Claims for objectivity, simplification, clarity and functional criteria for assessment are countered by claims for in-depth meaning-making and consideration of the complexity and knowledge instability that is constitutive of pedagogic practices. Ultimately, this study illustrates a professional shift within the teacher body towards notions of objectivity and individualisation, thereby threatening teachers’ critical discussions of their organisation and work.

The intensified use of materials, products and goods in our time involves massive consumption of metals and organic compounds that can be released from society to the environment in the various stages of production, use and waste. Depending on the circumstances this may give rise to environmental risks, as metals in general and certain organic substances may be toxic in the short or long term. So where have those metals and organic substances been utilized? In which products or environments? Substance flow analysis (SFA) is a method to deal with these issues. The results from the analysis are quantifications of flows and stocks in a systematic way and within defined system boundaries.In this thesis four main research areas are identified, which need to be addressed. i) Application of SFA on substances that have not been studied in this respect before, which can give knowledge about flows and stocks related to consumption of goods.  ii) Development of SFA to meet the needs in studies of trends for the substance cycles and studies of quantification of potential changes. iii) Assessment of which different agents and actions that induce the changes, such as chemical regulations, environmental objectives and aims. To what extent can these changes be related to substance flows? iv) Finally to assess, how can SFA be useful in environmental decisions? The specified aims focus on the metals antimony (Sb), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) and the group of organic compounds alkylphenol/alkylphenol ethoxylates (AP/APEO), in urban environments, exemplified with case studies of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.This thesis is a result of five studies. Three were based mainly on the methodology of SFA (Paper I-III). It has also been important to develop the chemical analysis of metals in goods where there has been a lack of information (Paper IV). Furthermore, assessment of policy questions and chemical regulations involve qualitative approaches and discussions (Paper I and V).The results show urban flows and stocks of the metals Cd, Hg, Pb and Sb and the group of organic substances AP/APEO. The results confirm that goods are important for the release of the substances studied. For Sb, emissions from brake linings (96%) dominate, but there are small emissions from textiles, potential emissions from flame retarded goods and probably small point sources. For AP/APEO the textile emissions were previously underestimated and the SFA presented here included this and pose textiles and cleaning agents as major emission source to wastewater.To repeat studies and to compare results from different years was a development of the SFA-method, which showed that Cd and Hg are being phased out as the inflow and stocks show diminished amounts, whereas the emissions remain approximately constant when comparing 1995 with 2002/2003. For Pb it is possible to talk about a phase-out of some specific goods, but not in general for inflow and stock.The changes in urban metabolism could be related to environmental decisions, e.g. effects of local initiatives and in some cases voluntary initiatives, but also as result of prevailing chemicals regulation. The utility of SFAs for decision makers may be related to methodological issues, such as the accounting approach. However, the utility was also found to depend on the structure of the monitoring, that is screening in the environment and concentration in wastewaters and sewage sludge precede the source mapping conducted with SFA. Substance Flow Analysis will likely continue to serve as the broad information tool for one substance at a time, which will offer source characterization of diffuse emissions in urban environments.

Conservation laws play an important role in science. The aim of this thesis is to provide an overview and develop new methods for constructing conservation laws using Lie group theory. The derivation of conservation laws for invariant variational problems is based on Noether’s theorem. It is shown that the use of Lie-Bäcklund transformation groups allows one to reduce the number of basic conserved quantities for differential equations obtained by Noether’s theorem and construct a basis of conservation laws. Several examples on constructing a basis for some well-known equations are provided.

Moreover, this approach allows one to obtain new conservation laws even for equations without Lagrangians. A formal Lagrangian can be introduced and used for computing nonlocal conservation laws. For self-adjoint or quasi-self-adjoint equations nonlocal conservation laws can be transformed into local conservation laws.

One of the fields of applications of this approach is electromagnetic theory, namely, nonlocal conservation laws are obtained for the generalized Maxwell-Dirac equations. The theory is also applied to the nonlinear magma equation and its nonlocal conservation laws are computed.

Most companies today are working in a global environment where competition is hard. In order to be able to survive it is essential that the companies utilise their resources as much as possible in order to keep the production cost low. Maintenance plays a crucial role because of its impact on availability, reliability, quality and life cycle cost (LCC). However, being able to use maintenance proactively so as to increase the utilisation of the production process resources requires access to proper tools and methods for deciding on what maintenance to use and to follow up maintenance impact.

Consequently, the overall research problem discussed in the thesis is: How to select a maintenance policy and follow up its performance with respect to cost-effectiveness in order to improve company profitability. In order to solve this overall research problem it has been broken down into four research questions R1: How can different approaches intended for maintaining or improving production process performance assist in the identification, analysis, elimination and prevention of recurrence of problems in a production process?, R2: How should maintenance be selected on the basis of cost-effectiveness?, R3: How should the technical and financial performance of maintenance be measured in order to enable cost-effective improvements? and R4: How to access relevant data required for cost-effective decisions in maintenance?.

The philosophical basis applied in the work presented in this thesis is systems theory. When looking at maintenance, it is necessary to have a wide perspective and also see the interaction between maintenance and other relevant working areas.

The major contributions that have been achieved and reported in the thesis are: 1. A literature review regarding current approach abilities to identify, analyse and prevent the recurrence of problems, 2. The development of a conceptual model for measuring the maintenance impact through a set of key performance indicators indicating where and how much to invest in maintenance., 3. The development of a maintenance support system for measuring the economic/financial impact of maintenance on both operative and strategic levels, 4. The development of a model for selecting and improving maintenance policies based on cost-effectiveness. The model presented is characterised by being flexible, in the meaning that it is possible to make a selection among any types of maintenance policies., 5. The definition and description of a common database containing relevant data for maintenance management and 6. Results from an exploratory study regarding IT maturity within maintenance management in Swedish industry are presented.

The main conclusion of the thesis is that the tools and methods described in this thesis can represent important elements in a system to continuously and cost-effectively improve maintenance performance and thereby better utilise the resources in the production process.

This thesis deals with automatic syntactic analysis of natural languagetext, also known as parsing. The parsing approach is data-driven, whichmeans that parsers are constructed by means of machine learning, lookingat training data in the form of annotated natural language sentences. The syntactic framework used in the thesis is dependency-based. Robustness is one of the characteristics of the data-driven approaches investigated here.The overall aim of this thesis is to maintain robustness while increasing accuracy.The content of the thesis falls naturally into two tracks, a transformation track and a combination track. The  rst type of transformation investigatedis called pseudo-projective, because it enables strictly projective dependency parsers to recover non-projective dependency relations. Informally,a non-projective dependency tree contains crossing binary directed relations, when drawn above the sentence. Experimental results show that pseudo-projective transformations can improve accuracy significantly for a range of languages. The second type of transformation aims to facilitate the processing of specific linguistic constructions such as coordination and verb groups. Experimental results again show a positive effect on parsing accuracy for several languages, often greater than for the pseudo-projective transformations. However, the improvement of the transformations dependson the internal structure of the base parser, which is not the case for thepseudo-projective transformations. The combination track compares various approaches for combining data driven dependency parsers, again as a means of improving accuracy. As different parsers have different strengths and weaknesses, making parsers collaborate in order to  nd one single syntactic analysis may result in higher accuracy than any of the syntactic analyzers can produce by itself. The experimental results show that accuracy improves across languages, giventhat appropriate parsers are combined. The thesis ends with an attempt to combine the two tracks, showing that combining parsers with different tree transformations also increases accuracy. Moreover, this experiment indicates that high diversity among a small set of parsers is much more important than a large number of parsers with low diversity.

Denna avhandling hade två syften. 1. Att i ett organisations-, professions- och pedagogiskt samverkansperspektiv studera några förskollärares möjligheter och hinder för utvecklingen av en genusmedveten pedagogik. 2. Att bedriva kvalita-tiv forskning utifrån antaganden om forskning för social rättvisa, som ett bidrag till metodologiutveckling. Följande frågeställningar belyste dessa syften: Hur skapar förskollärare utrymme för reflektion och kunskapsprocesser över tid; vil-ka individuella och kollektiva handlingar utför förskollärare över tid; vilka bi-drag till verksamhetsutveckling kan en studie av detta slag göra? Med feminis-tisk pragmatism som vetenskapsteoretisk grund tillämpades feministisk aktions-forskning som satte förskollärarnas frågeställningar i centrum. Under tre års tid ägde regelbundna träffar rum för gemensamma reflektioner, utvärderingar och planeringar av pedagogiska handlingar. Enskilda och gruppintervjuer, deltagande observationer samt en stor mängd mejl-, telefon- och brevutbyten kompletterade datainsamlingen. Den analytiska forskningsberättelsen växte fram under åter-koppling till förskollärares handlingar och i ljuset av förskollärares diffusa pro-fessionstillhörighet. Handlingarna tolkades utifrån de i feministisk aktionsforsk-ningsmetodologi inneboende principerna vad, vem och kritiska händelser över tid. Organisations- och professionsteoretiska analyser visade att förskollärarnas handlingar varken erkändes som professionella av den kommunala arbetsgivaren eller föräldrarna. Förskollärarnas behov av professionell erkänsla var stort, men när den uteblev, visade sig det långsiktiga utvecklingsarbetet vara av stort värde, därför att förskollärarna lyckades åstadkomma pedagogiskt sett meningsfulla förändringar, vilket understryker den temporala aspekten av organisatoriska för-ändringar underifrån. Förskollärarnas kollektiva handlingar började rota sig i en gemensam värdegrund. Formen av utvecklingsarbetet - att samarbeta med en al-lierad utifrån - var avgörande för skapandet av utrymme för reflektion och kol-lektiva handlingar. Kollektiva handlingar möjliggjordes i hög utsträckning tack vare enskilda deltagares mod att bryta tystnader om orättvisor i den egna verk-samheten. En slutsats är att det är möjligt att åstadkomma organisatoriska för-ändringar över tid genom en radikal öppenhet för agency. Transformativa kun-skapsprocesser kan åstadkommas om erbjudanden till ett genuint deltagande i ett förändringsarbete lämnas och mottas. Genom en problematisering av termer som handling, deltagande, emancipation, social rättvisa och kunskap gjordes ett me-todologiskt bidrag till feministisk aktionsforskning.

The rapid development of mobile technologies combined with access to content almost everywhere and every time allows people to experience new situations regarding learning in a wide variety of situations. Mobile learning brings the promise of learning "on the move" by allowing learners to take control over time and space, thus making learning "more natural". The field of mobile learning has rapidly evolved in the last ten years and many initiatives have been conducted worldwide. However, research results indicate that few of these efforts have produced any lasting outcomes. It is evident that these initiatives are faced with inherently complex settings and that the outcomes might not live up to their prom- ises; will not be adopted and, hence, will not become sustainable.

Many of the complex issues faced by mobile learning initiatives are similar to those faced by the development of information systems. This latest statement suggests that an improved development practice might hold one piece of the key to sustainable mobile learning. The aim of the research presented in this thesis is to investigate the relation between information systems development practice and mobile learning development; and if methods and models originated within information systems development can be used to strengthen mobile learning initiatives. In order to investigate this relation, this thesis studies several mobile learning initiatives with a particular focus on how and why development and research was initiated and conducted. Concepts found in mobile learning practices are strengthened by providing a theoretical perspective with roots in information systems development. The outcomes of the studies presented in this thesis indicate that the development practice of mobile learning initiatives can be redefined in order to achieve more sustainable results.

The core of this thesis consists of eight peer-reviewed scientific publications that have been presented at different international conferences. Five of the papers explore the field of mobile learning and its practice while the other three publications present the central ideas that serve as the basis for the proposed framework, how it has been developed, and the motivations behind its creation.

The main contribution of this thesis is a novel development framework aimed at researchers and practitioners in the field of mobile learning. The framework defines the life-cycle of a mobile learning initiative and identifies the importance of emphasizing the concepts of scalability and sustainability during the development process. This may be a way to reduce the complexity inherent to mobile learning and its settings, and a means to improve the outcomes of coming mobile learning initiatives in terms of long lasting usable results.

This thesis consists of three essays that examine issues on university attendance behavior, factorsof university completion, and the labor market value of a university diploma in Sweden.

Essay [I] analyzes how the rapid expansion of higher education that increased the geographicalaccessibility to higher education in the 1990s affected university enrollment decisions amongvarious socioeconomic groups of young adults in Sweden. The empirical findings show that theprobability of enrollment in university education increases with accessibility to universityeducation. The results also indicate that accessibility adds to the likelihood of attending auniversity within the region of residence. Access to higher education more locally seems to havedecreased the social distance to higher education, meaning that the option of attending highereducation, as compared to entering the local labor market after upper secondary school, hasbecome a more common and a more natural alternative for more socioeconomic groups insociety.

Essay [II] compares the performance of students in universities built before and after the largedecentralization and expansion of the higher educational system in Sweden, starting in the late1970s. Two outcome measures are used: (i) whether or not the student has obtained a degreewithin seven years after she initiated her studies; and (ii) whether or not she obtained 120 creditpoints (the requirement for most undergraduate degrees) within seven years. Controlling forseveral background variables as well as GPA scores in a binomial probit model, we show thatstudents at old universities are about 5 percentage points more likely to get a degree and about 9percentage points more likely to obtain 120 credit points. However, in an extended bivariatemodel where we consider selection on unobservables into university type, we cannot reject thepossibility of no difference in performance between the two university types.

Essay [III] analyzes the labor market value of a university diploma (sheepskin) in Sweden. Incontrast to previous studies, this study only focuses on Swedish university students who havethree years of full time university education or more − where some have obtained a universitydegree, others not. The results show that for male students, the wage premium of possessing adegree, i.e. the sheepskin effect, is roughly 5-8 percent. For women, it is about 6-7 percent forthose who have completed four years of fulltime or more. For students who attended a moreprestigious university in the metropolitan areas in Sweden and majored in the natural sciences, asheepskin effect of roughly 13 percent for men and 22 percent for women is traced. However,this result did not hold among students who attended.

Keywords: Higher education, university enrollment; university choice; accessibility; universitycompletion; selection bias; propensity score matching, sheepskin, human capital.

The automatic assessment of software quality using standard- and metric-based Software Quality Models has numerous advantages. For example, it is less error-prone, less time consuming, and neutral to human judgments compared to manual approaches. Yet, to rely on the results, the Software Quality Models need to be validated, i.e., experiments should show that the measured quality and the experienced quality correlate. Such validations are rare and the few that exist are hard to generalize since they are ambiguously defined.

In detail, to be able to generalize from a validation of a standard- and metric-based Software Quality Model, the following prerequisites need to be fulfilled: First, the definitions of the software quality metrics need to be unambiguous. Second, a formal meta-model for the software assessed and a mapping from the (language specific) software elements to the elements of a formal meta-model need to be defined. Finally, the definition of the Software Quality Model needs to be exact. The prerequisites for generalization stated above are not fulfilled in practice. This is shown in the first part of this thesis, which is at first based on practical observations and then on experiments.

In order to address the above issues, we define a common meta-model as well as a mapping from language specific software elements to meta-model elements. This meta-model is then the basis for metrics definitions; we redefine about 25 well-known object-oriented metrics using our meta-model. Using these metrics, we introduce a Software Quality Model based on ISO 9126. It defines quantitatively the relations between the metrics and the quality factors and criteria. Fulfilling the prerequisite unambiguous experiment definition, as described in the second part of this thesis, allows us to validate the Software Quality Model in experiments and generalize from the results.

In the third part, we describe the main experiment: Using multicollinearity analysis, we show (i) that some metrics suggested in literature are linearly dependent. Using univariate regression analysis, we show (ii) that a Software Quality Model for maintainability based on the linearly independent metrics correlates with the number of revisions in successful open source projects--later revisions have better maintainability than earlier ones. Using multivariate regression analysis, we show (iii) how these metrics correlate with the number of iterations in the projects. For (i), we analyze 157 different software projects with over 70,000 classes. For (ii) and (iii), we analyze over 300 versions of 11 well-known open source projects. As a side effect, we extracted the distribution and threshold values for the well-known object-oriented metrics defined on classes.

Besides, we created tools and processes for monitoring software quality which may be used in a number of scenarios. In the development process, they allow early corrective actions. Under maintenance, they allow a precise assessment of required efforts of change and redevelopment. For project management, they allow to control if subcontractors or outsourced software developers meet the agreed quality goals. We show the feasibility of our tools and processes in a number of such practical cases.

Vampires haunt our culture. They live amongst us, they live with us, and very likely, they live for us. Considering the never fading popularity of vampires, it is obvious that these beings satisfy some kind of basic human need. Why are vampires so popular? What kinds of specific characteristics do vampires possess that lead to our never-ending fascination with them? These are questions that are answered in this dissertation, which deals with the vampire narrative’s most significant transformations during the period 1700-2000.

 This study reveals that the vampire is a monster that allows both identification and distance, which makes it into an appropriate character for people to use when they tell stories about themselves and the surrounding world. This is reflected in vampire narratives. The nature of vampires and the material of vampire narratives are not something that has undergone random changes in the course of history. These transformations have their origins in various societal and cultural processes. Through studying the historical and cultural contexts that have produced vampire narratives, one can understand why vampires have been portrayed in different ways at different times and places. Similarly, studying the vampire narrative can also be used to understand the history and culture in which the narrative was created. An examination of the vampire narrative’s history from a cultural criticism perspective reveals a distinct pattern. The vampire narrative has always attracted most attention in times of social and cultural unrest. In all of the varying contexts where vampire characters appear throughout a story, a power game is occurring – a game where the vampire’s character is strategically used to express political opinions and strengthen ideological beliefs. The constant appearance of vampires in such power games is a distinctive feature within the history of vampire narratives, and the societal turbulence leaves its impression on the vampire narrative. These impressions are analyzed and interpreted in this dissertation in order to reveal the power and the strategies of power within the discourse in which the narrative has been produced. In order to describe how the vampire character has functioned and continues to function in what the study calls conflicts of power relations, the term and phenomena power improvisation is used.

 In the description of the history of the vampire narrative, one can discern two important sub-processes. The first describes how the vampire character and narrative have been fashioned into what they are today. During the period of interest, the vampire is transformed from the un-dead of folklore to an attractive nobleman and further into to a Count Dracula, in order to simultaneously be portrayed as what this study terms a human vampire. The second sub-process explains why the vampire character and narrative have been fashioned into what they are today. It describes the political and ideological beliefs which exist in the society where the vampire form is created and which give birth to different kinds of vampires. If, in the past, the vampire was a monster that was used to portray that which humans are afraid of, today it is a monster with which humans identify. This, claims the author, is due to the fact that the age in which we live is to a great extent imbued with the logic of consumer culture. People in a consumer culture live lives filled with demands which influence their self-image. Feelings of inadequacy and isolation are typical. For people of today, the vampire is an ally that offers an alternative and meets those needs that are neglected in a consumer society.

Work-related activation policies are currently developing in most western welfare states. Sweden is no exception and activation policies were introduced in the 1990s in many municipal social services organizations in Sweden. The Swedish form of activation policies requires social assistance recipients to participate in mandatory activation program in return for financial support. This dissertation investigates the street-level implementation practices of activation policies within the context of the Swedish welfare state. The purpose of the study is to examine how street-level workers in the municipal social service systemtranslate activation policy into practice in their interactions with the clients and what factors that structure their implementation practices.

The research project is a multiple-case study that examines the street-level practices in two municipal social service settings in Sweden, Skärholmen city-district in Stockholm municipality and Osby municipality and their local activation programs. The data collection consists of observations of the staffs’ daily operations, interviews with local politicians and other key personnel, and the analysis of formal policy and program documents.

Theoretically this dissertation builds on the street-level bureaucracy perspective (Lipsky, 1980), which suggests that organizational working conditions shape street-level workers implementation practices through their development of informal coping strategies. But this study extends the street-level buraucracy approach by including political-institutional factors and normative assumptions about public support and social assistance recipients into the analysis.

Findings from the study suggest that street-level implementation practices entail a number of informal coping strategies that removes activation policy from formal policy goals. Implementation practices entail, for example, mass referrals instead of individual assessments and tailor-made solutions. Clients were sorted and categorized on the basis of moral perceptions about behavioral deficits instead of employment needs. These informal practice strategies were the results of both coping strategies and normative assumptions that interacted with the organizational context in which these practices took place.

Denna avhandlings resultat är en modell för asymmetriskt påverkat be-slutsfattande. Upprinnelsen till avhandlingen var ett beslutsmöte i ett IT-projekt, där projektledaren inte förstod beställarens/beslutsfattarens val av informationssystem. Problemsituationen ledde fram till att följande fem forskningsfrågor utkristalliserades.

1. Är det möjligt att genom en deskriptiv modell tydliggöra hur be-slutsfattande i IT-projekt går till? Vilka faktorer/faktorsgrupper/ ämnesområden påverkar beslutsfattandet på beslutsmöten i IT-projekt? Hur är sambanden mellan faktorerna? Hur är möjligheten att skapa förståelse för fattade beslut?

2. Kan en normativ modell möjliggöra ett metodiskt genomskinligt arbete i beslutsgrupper inom IT-projekt?

3. Kan modellen/modellerna generaliseras till alla typer av projekt el-ler för alla beslut?

4. Tydliggörs ontologins, kommunikationens och innehållets roll och betydelse för beslutsfattandet på beslutsmöten i IT-projekt?

5. Tillför användandet av en berättelse som verktyg något extra till forskarens egen förståelse? Frågan gäller min egen upplevelse av berättelsen och sättet att arbeta med den.

För att besvara den femte forskningsfrågan skapades en berättande pro-jektdagbok, som till sin form bygger på Platons dialoger. I berättelsen be-skrivs tidigare forskning, teorier, rundabordssamtal, enkät och intervju. Detta används som underlag för att skapa en deskriptiv modell och en normativ modell (för att kunna besvara forskningsfråga 1 och 2). Meto-den i den berättande projektdagboken har varit grundad teori. Berättel-sen har legat till grund för själva avhandlingen, där design science har använts som metod för att verifiera de framtagna artefakterna (dvs de båda modellerna). Verifieringen har skett genom studier av tidigare forskning och genomförande av en större enkät. De båda modellerna in-nehåller i princip oändligt många faktorer som påverkar ett beslutsfat-tande, vilket visar på komplexiteten i ett beslutsfattande. För att tydlig-göra bakomliggande faktorer genomfördes därför en morfologisk analys.

Under arbetet med berättelsen visade det sig att projektledaren och beställaren/beslutsfattaren i det exemplifierade beslutsmötet tolkade be-slutsunderlaget på olika sätt, vilket baserades på att de som individer påverkades av olika faktorer och att de inte hade tillgång till samma in-formation. Denna olikhet – eller asymmetri – finns på alla nivåer, t ex hos individen, i informationen och i strategin.

Den deskriptiva och den normativa modellen samordnades med den morfologiska analysen till en gemensam modell för asymmetriskt påver-kat beslutsfattande som besvarar forskningsfråga 1 och 2. Modellen be-står av tre delar med tillsammans åtta faktorsgrupper: ett beslut fattas på ett Underlag av en eller flera Individer i en given Situation. Dessa tre delar samverkar när ett beslut fattas. Underlaget består av två faktorsgrupper, tydlighet och effekt/nytta, Individ/er består av fyra faktorsgrupper, Skapat individ, Påverkar individ, Påverkar individens framtid och Påverkar grupp och den sista delen, Situation, består av faktorsgrupperna Styr situationen och Påverkar situationen. Eftersom modellen är både deskriptiv och normativ kan den användas både för beskrivning och för styrning, vilka ökar för-ståelsen för fattade beslut.

För att tillämpa modellen är det lämpligt att först uppnå förståelse för asymmetrins påverkan. Beslutsmodellen bör sedan som ett andra steg inarbetas i verksamhetens övriga modeller/metoder för projekt, beslut osv. Det tredje steget är utbildning i att använda modellen/metoden, vil-ket bör följas av en organisering av en stödfunktion. Detta tillvägagångs-sätt minimerar asymmetrin, vilket torde leda till ökad förståelse för fat-tade beslut samt ett förbättrat beslutsfattande.

Generalisering (forskningsfråga 3) av modellen pekar att den kan an-vändas för andra projekt än de som har en inriktning på informationssy-stem. Modellen kan även användas i linjeverksamhet – inte enbart i pro-jektverksamhet.

Ontologi, kommunikation och innehåll (forskningsfråga 4) är viktigt för beslutsfattandet och för det beslutsunderlag, som beslutet fattas på. Berörda personer i beslutsfattandet ska i den skriftliga och muntliga kommunikationen av innehåll få samma förståelse för termernas bety-delse. Med gemensam förståelse, anpassad kommunikation och tydligt innehåll kan asymmetrin minimeras.

Skapandet och användningen av berättelsen (forskningsfråga 5) har underlättat arbetet med avhandlingen och ökat min egen förståelse för beslutsfattande. Användande av berättelse har alltså varit ett bra arbets-sätt och ett pedagogiskt bra verktyg för eget lärande, även om det har va-rit arbetskrävande.

In order to change and to think in new ways boundaries of thought and action must be dislodged or crossed. To do this, something needs to disrupt the conceptual world. Counter-language is therefore a recurring concept in this dissertation. Art can be seen as counter-language, but also pedagogical processes can have this characteristic. Counter-language is that which provokes, that which calls into question the language people use to interpret their life experiences.

In this dissertation I examine two pedagogical chains of events that challenge the participants' "world view", and in which the participants meet a counter-language aimed at the type of learning that involves the confirmation of knowledge. How do the participants in these two arenas describe these events, and how do they approach the pedagogical "game”? The goal is to organize in theoretical themes and to put into words the concrete images of the pedagogical context where individuals' world view and self-image are confronted, and to interpret and analyze them.

The empirical part of this study involves two arenas. The first arena is an encounter between the school and the theatre. An analysis of group interviews shows how teachers talk about theatre and its potential in educational contexts. The second arena is a university course in cultural pedagogy in which the participants' written assignments comprise the empirical material. What happens when the participants experience counter-language? When conceptual worlds are confronted or challenged, we can react in different ways. We are faced with the choice to choose, to either look at or to look away. In encounters with counter-language, teachers and course participants are confronted with these choices. Should they engage in the pedagogical "game"? The results show what happens when the participants are confronted with counter-language. Three different action strategies are formulated: "to go into," "to stay put," and "to flee from."

People strive to create order, to create meaning, in everything that happens. This involves both cognitive and existential meaning-making. In this perspective learning involves meaning-making processes in which pupils' understandings of themselves and the world are provoked and challenged. A frequently occurring notion about learning is that it is a linear process in which new knowledge is added to previously learned knowledge in a summative process. However, learning is more complex than this. Less frequently do people speak of challenging and provoking existing knowledge. It is my intention to problematize this.

By way of conclusion, didactic issues concerning the school, and the teacher education are discussed in light of this study’s findings.

This thesis focuses on immigrants in Sweden. What experiences from the meeting with Swedish society do immigrants have and what meaning does the immigrant background have when they have been patients within the Swedish health and medical service? Former research about patients with an immigrant background can be divided into two perspectives. One which illuminates ethnically demarcated immigrant groups and specific needs. The other perspective has an individually adopted approach independently of the patients’ ethnical background. Here it is mainly the communication problems that are stressed, since these make it hard to understand the individual’s needs.

The two empirical studies of the thesis start from an individualised perspective, a life world perspective. Research data have been collected through open interviews.

The overall purpose was to develop a deepened understanding of what it means to live as an immigrant in Sweden and receive care. The aim of the pre-study was to examine immigrants’ experiences of participation in municipal home care. In the main study the overall purpose was used and two research questions were asked: What do persons with an immigrant background have to tell us about their situation in Swedish society? How does the situation as an immigrant in Sweden influence the experience of being a patient in Swedish health and medical care?

The pre-study shows that participation means making demands and meeting caregivers who view the patient as an actor with the right to make his or her own decisions. One important postulate seems to be access to a good interpreter. To refrain from participation seems to be about adopting a passive attitude as a patient. It seems as if it is the caregivers who are the active ones and the ones setting the standards for the contents of the care. To experience not being invited to participation mainly seems to originate from the fact that the interviewees could neither understand nor make themselves understood. One consequence is that patients are just looked upon as carriers of a symptom.

The main study shows that the interviewees’ existential existence as patients involves the whole life situation. Different forms of unsurmountable difficulties might reinforce each other. The ambition to establish oneself in a new home country might therefore be passivised. For patients with immigrant background earlier experiences from exposed situations seem to influence how the patients feel about their treatment. The additional knowledge is that problems seem to reinforce each other. Patients with an immigrant background must be treated as individuals. Every individual’s story has to be made visible.

The thesis shows that caregivers ought to endeavour to understand the individual. To encourage dialogue, despite language problems, is of importance for the patient to be able to express his or her needs. The use of an interpreter may have a positive influence on these patients’ possibilities to exert an influence. This means that caregivers who consult an interpreter should build up their competence to communicate through an interpreter.

To be sentenced to care in the forensic psychiatric services can be seen as one of the most comprehensive encroachments society can make on a person's life and being, as it entails a limitation of the individual's freedom but with no time limit. The aim of this dissertation is to describe caring in forensic psychiatry based on how it is experienced by those who perform the caring and by those are cared for in a maximum secure unit. A reflective lifeworld approach, based on phenomenological philosophy, has been applied. The data has been collected in interviews that have been analyzed by use of a meaning analysis searching for the essence of the phenomenon. The results of the research are presented in two empirical studies and a general structure based on the empirical findings. The dissertation also contains an excursus, a philosophical intermediate chapter containing further analysis of the results of the studies.

The results show how the forensic psychiatric care is experienced as being non-caring by the patients with only small "pockets" of good care. Caring consists of corrective techniques that are unreflected and contradictory, where the conditions are determined by the caregivers and the ward culture. The correcting takes place through the modification of the patients' behaviour with the aim of the patients having to adapt themselves to the terms of the care provision. This care results in the patients trying, by use of different strategies, to adapt them-selves to the demands of the caregivers in order to gain privileges. At the same time the patients long to get away from the care system and are lacking real, meaningful and close relationships. To be the subject of care entails struggling against an approaching overwhelming sense of resignation and to care entails experiencing both power and powerlessness in performing the care. A destructive power struggle is being waged within forensic psychiatric care that suppresses the caring potential and true caring is thus elusive.

The characteristics of forensic psychiatric care, based on the results of the research, are clarified in the dissertation's excursus. These include the corrective and disciplinary nature of forensic psychiatric care, its power and how this is materialized in care situations as well as the influence of tradition on current forensic psychiatric care in the light of the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault.

The dissertation shows that if the caring potential is to be able to be developed and form a caring nucleus for forensic psychiatric care then education levels need to be further developed. A caring culture and caring environment is needed where true caring can gain a foothold. In order for this to become a possibility the current caring culture and environment must be clarified, questioned and examined. The prevalent fundamental ideas in forensic psychiatric care have to be "jeopardized" and challenged by new scientifically based ideas on what constitutes true caring in this context.

This thesis is about the every day life of children who suffer from economic hardship. The aim is, from the children's point of view, to create an understanding of the consequences that economic hardship has on their relationships with their parents and other children. A further aim is to gain an understanding of how children act in relation to the families' economic situation and how they experience their every day life and general living conditions. Parents have also been interviewed about the families' general living conditions and the interaction between children and parents in relation to the economic situation.

The empirical data has been collected over a period of fourteen months. Fourteen children aged 7-19 years and eight parents in seven families have been interviewed on five occasions. A total of 44 interviews have been conducted. The theoretical foundation of the thesis is childhood sociology, symbolic interactionism and social identity.

The conclusions of this thesis can be summarized in two major results. The first is that economic hardship is of importance in the relationship with other children and in the interaction between children and their parents. The children's possibilities of participating together with peers through possessions and activities are affected to a varying extent depending on the circumstances. The relationship with their parents is also affected by children having to take economic responsibility and by children cooperating with them. Economic hardship also causes a strain on the relationship. The second major result is that children are active in forming theirs and their families' every day life in relation to the economic limits. On the basis of their understanding and their definition of the situation they choose different strategies, the aims of which are either to live within the limitations of the situation, so-called reactive strategies, or to change their own situation and sometimes also the situation of their household. These are defined as proactive strategies in the thesis.

A recent trend in software engineering is to delay design decisions. One motivation is that requirements or properties of the application and environment are not known until later in the design and development process. This continues to hold for design decisions in a high-performance context where e.g., the number of processors is assigned late to applications and their components.

In this thesis we present three case studies, ranging from Web Services and Grid computing to library design. In each of these case studies we study how performance requirements, and both properties of the application and the environment determine when design decisions can be made. We found that in many scenarios, design decisions have to be delayed, sometimes even until execution time.

Based on our findings, we introduce context-aware composition, a composition technique that allows the designer to specify a set of variant implementations, a set of properties and goal criteria. The context-aware composition then composes the variants into a best fit application according to the goal criteria as well as application and environmental properties. The composition will happen automatically at the earliest possible time i.e., when enough information is available, either off-line or on-line. By using context-aware composition, developers can focus on the functional aspects of the application, and let the composition technique decide the delayed optimization decisions.

We show that each of the cases studies is a special case of the context-aware composition. This makes context-aware composition a plausible solution to the problems solved in the case studies as well as other similar problems.

This dissertation is a case study dealing with a school development project that took place in an upper secondary school as a result of a merger of two schools with different cultures. The project used a method called “Frirumsmodellen” and was planned to be conducted in three steps. The first was to carry out a cultural analysis in order to map the preconditions to start a school development project. The second was to carry out concrete actions and finally study eventual effects from such activities by doing a second cultural analysis. My role was to be a supervisor in the school development work, but at the same time study how this work was conducted and its impact in the ordinary school day.

The dissertation takes its departure in the fact that schools are political governed. The mission of schools is never neutral; it is always an expression of behind laying social forces, ideologies and ideals of the contemporary society. Of this reason, there is a close connection between the macro political level and the micro political level. Another point of departure is the transition from a modern to a post modern society that gives the character to the changes that take place in schools. Steering of schools has partly been treated as a technical implementation problem. Schools contain on going conflicts between different interest groups that, more or less regularly, end up in educational reforms. These reforms generate school development activities in the single school. Undoubtedly, this makes school development to a complex process.

At a rather late stage of the study I decided not to fulfil my task to follow the original plan. I instead let the school development project as a model to be in focus. The over all purpose was formulated: How is it possible to understand what happened in the school development project in the Falkgymnasiet and why was it not possible to carry it out as it was said in the project plan? To interpret what took place during the project I did create an interpretation frame of implementation and complexity theory that also made it possible to critically scrutinise the “Frirumsmodellen”.

Already in an early stage of the process it was obvious that the “Frirumsmodellen” did not supply any tools to use and it became disconnected from the project. The project in it selves was marginalised and made invisible. The headmaster used the situation to change things she thought were important to develop. As a result, things happened, but most of the involved people did not at first hand connect this to the project. It is, of course, difficult in detail to say what caused what. The complexity theory successively made the hidden patterns revealed, hidden unofficial potentates visible, as well as unpredictable conditions that generated reactions from the personnel in front of a development work. Together this was rather efficient obstacles for not changing this school.

I also discuss school development and implementation problems on a general level, for example, the possibility to transform a top-down initiated project to be bottom-up driven and using project as a tool for school development work. It was obvious that headmasters and teachers must be prepared to handle the ideological dimensions of problems schools have to face. Consequently, development work is about making problems visible and to handle these in the intersection point between the intentions of educational policies, pedagogical researchers, school administrators, headmasters, teachers and pupils. The ideological dimension also contains an existential issue. Do I as a teacher share the intentions for the development work? If not, how must I act?

The aim of this research is to acquire knowledge about fostering young children, as expressed in everyday interactions between teachers and children in Swedish preschools. The three empirical studies in this doctoral thesis investigated partly specific democratic values such as participation and influence and partly the values that teachers explicitly or implicitly encourage and how these values are communicated to children. The thesis takes a critical approach in order to also acquire knowledge about important fostering aspects that can move hierarchal power structures towards a fostering of values characterized by intersubjectivity. In order to understand the interactions, the concepts of communicative and strategic action (Habermas, 1984) are used, as well as strong and weak classification and framing (Bernstein, 2000). Preschool fostering is also analyzed from a double perspective, with a starting-point in Habermas’ (1984, 1995a) concepts of the system and the life-world. The fieldwork took place with three different groups of toddlers in Swedish preschools. Forty-six children (aged 1 to 3 years) participated, as well as their ten teachers. The data consisted of videotaped observations of teacher and child interactions. The first study investigated how a toddler’s participation can be understood in two kinds of educational activities where the degree of teacher control differs. The results showed how strong classification and framing risk restricting children’s participation and how a weak classification and framing can promote children’s opportunities to participate on their own terms. Important issues for children’s participation were found to be a participant teacher who creates meaningful contexts, where teacher control is about being emotionally present, supportive and responsive. The purpose of the second study was to investigate how very young children can exert an influence in circle-time situations in relation to teacher control. The results showed that the children do, in fact, make choices, mostly based on several fixed alternatives, and that they do take the initiative, sometimes to express an opinion or a right, sometimes to express what they want to do in circle time. It was also found that the influence young children are able to exert varies with the control the teacher exercises. It is evident that strong teacher control is maintained in different ways and that strong control does not necessarily limit children’s influence; it depends on the nature of the control. Children’s influence increases when the teacher’s control over the what and how aspects of communications is weak, and is characterized by closeness to the child’s life-world and a communicative approach. The third study examined the values that teachers explicitly or implicitly encourage and how these values are communicated to children. The analyses resulted in ten specific values embedded in value dimensions of discipline, caring and democracy. These, in turn, can be divided into different social orientations – both collective and individualistic. The values are communicated differently and the what aspect of the communication (the value) is interrelated with the how aspect of the communication; how teachers communicate influences and sometimes changes the communicated value. In order to change power structures in teacher and child interactions, three aspects of importance have been identified: teachers’ closeness to the child’s perspective, their emotional presence and playfulness. Theoretically, the aspects are within the framework of communicative action and contribute to the understanding of what the theory might mean in communication with the youngest children in the educational system. 

This dissertation examines Lennart Sjögren’s conception of life as revealed through his poetry and other written documents. Light is shed on his writings in three chapters, with an Introduction that opens the investigations, and a Conclusion that sums up the findings. His collection of poetry Ur männisovärlden (2008, From the world of the living) is commented upon in an epilogue. Chapter Two analyses the collection Havet (1974, The Sea), focussing on Sjögren’s view of nature and his imagery. A religious tone can be apparent throughout the poems. In earlier centuries, poems about migratory birds often gained in authenticity via their Christian context. In a secularised age, ecological insights add to the credibility of the poems. Chapter Three is an analysis and interpretation of Sjögren’s collection of poems Fågeljägarna (1997, The Bird Catchers), as well as of the intra- and intertexts that the reader meets in his writings and that, for various reasons, serve to make Sjögren’s poetic voice so distinctive. In a series of subsections the uniqueness of Fågeljägarna is defined by means of a comparison with ecology, secularisation (secularism), nihilism, religion and mythology. In addition, there is a discussion of the “poetry of place” and a final analysis of what unites and divides Sjögren and K. E. Løgstrup, regarding a poetic understanding of life. Independent of the ideological direction that is identi-fied, this cycle of poems is marked by an elegiac mood. The poem “Dagen före plöjarens kväll” (1984, “The Day before the Plough-man’s Evening”) from the eponymous collection of poems is an example of an ekphrasis (a transformation of images). Chapter Four makes a close reading of this poem, for which Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s picture “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” is a model. Four interpretative hypotheses are advanced: a moral, ontological, theological and a folkloristic one. The interpretation of the poem points out that the dialogue is not merely the poet’s private affair – the reader is also invited to take an active part in the discussion, now with the picture and the ekphrasis as prerequisites. The chapter contains a further three analyses of ekphrasis dealing with other poems from the collection Dagen före plöjarens kväll.

This dissertation focuses on the experiences of second language pupils which involve linguistic encounters. The overarching aim is to analyse second language pupils' encounters with Swedish as a Second Language and the Swedish school, using a “curriculum theory” and a ”life story” approach". The goal is achieved by examining two empirical contexts which can be described as expressed and experienced curricula. In the first context, an idea analysis is carried out of the contents of the syllabi and curricula for Swedish as a Second Language over a period of time. In the second context, a narrative analysis is carried out of the life stories given by second language pupils of their encounter with Swedish as a Second Language and the Swedish school. Trainee teachers with Swedish as a Second Language participate by telling their life stories.

A framework for interpretation emerges by reasoning about language and the creation of meaning, as well as about culture, cultural capital, similarities/differences, compensating/completing and limited participation/full participation. The reasoning leads to the construction of a theoretical interpretation framework and prisms through which the offered and experienced learning can be studied.

The analysis shows that what is on offer in the curricula and syllabi is mainly monocultural. It shows that a new subject has grown up based on the need to teach pupils about the Swedish cultural heritage and Swedish norms. Moreover, both changes in the expressed educational ideals over a period of time and contradictory educational ideals become evident. It is also clear that those providing the information felt both different and excluded. They were not monolingual, and did not have Swedish as their mother tongue. To make up for this lack of Swedishness, they were separated from the other classmates and offered special teaching in an attempt to compensate. They also received mother tongue tuition, which was not in Swedish, and this became a problem for those around them, who considered this was an easy option. The second language tuition they were offered focussed partly on their mistakes and shortcomings, and partly on the Swedish cultural heritage. Their earlier experience and skills were not used.

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays about immigrants’ experiences in Sweden. They all focus on the interaction between institutional settings and effects on immigrants’ economic conditions. Essay I examines the effects of changed eligibility rules for disability pension in the 1979 Swedish pension reform on immigrant retirement behavior. The reform made disability pension in the form of basic pension available to a wider group of immigrants. Before the pension reform, the eligibility for a basic pension for foreign citizens living in Sweden was dependent on bilateral and multilateral agreements on social security between Sweden and other countries. Thus, immigrants who were not covered by any of these agreements had no access to a basic pension before the reform. Through the reform, all foreign citizens residing in Sweden were made eligible for a basic pension after a short qualification period. The results indicate a substantial impact on the retirement rate with disability pension on the immigrant group that was made eligible for a basic pension by the reform. These findings confirm previous research showing that the size of the benefit levels in the pension system affects early retirement behavior. Essay II analyzes the impact of the Swedish taxi and bus deregulations on the differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers in these sectors. The changes in the gap in labor earnings that are due to the deregulation are estimated. The results show that there was no significant decrease in the differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers in the bus sector as a result of the 1989 deregulation. As regards the taxi sector, the results show that, before the deregulation, there were only small differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers. After the deregulation, the real labor earnings of foreign born workers decreased substantially more than those of Swedish born workers. However, there was a larger increase in the inflow of foreign born workers than of Swedish born workers into the taxi sector after the deregulation, which may have changed the composition of immigrant workers in this sector. Essay III investigates the impact of becoming a Swedish citizen on annual labor earnings. The study finds a positive impact of naturalization on labor earnings, in particular for immigrants originating from Africa and Asia, an effect than cannot only be attributed to selection into citizenship. A clear trend of increasing labor earnings during the years before becoming a Swedish citizen is found. This trend also continued during the years after citizenship acquisition. The study also suggests that the effects of naturalization on labor earnings are larger for men than for women, and larger for individuals with very low income.

Transition Economics focuses on the transformation of a socialist economic system to market economy, which is of interest both because of its policy relevance and its importance to economic theory. As transition was one of the most important economic events of the last century, the study of Transition Economy may help us to understand the difficulties, surprises, and obstacles when a society undergoes profound change. Moreover, it may develop our knowledge of the capitalist economic system and its institutions.

The dissertation consists of two different topics within Transition Economics. The first three papers, based on three different data sets, focus on various aspects of the Russian labour market. Theses papers include analyses about the ways people search for work, how unemployment duration is affected by different characteristics, but also how people divide the time outside the paid labour market. This may provide new insights on the Russian labour market, and hopefully also deepen our understanding of labour markets in general.

The fourth paper, based on a fourth data set, takes a macro perspective and is concerned with transition and terrorism. It has been claimed that with new democracies, an increased risk of terrorism follows. Therefore, in the final paper, the potential connection between terrorism and transitional progress is analysed.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have made an impact on various parts of a company. The need of many companies of integrating the wealth of information and processes for profitable business has been highlighted since the middle of the 1980s. Further, the commercialization of the Internet began during the middle of the 1990s. The combinations of these developments and the positive impact of ICTs on maintenance and thereby on productivity have been, lately, realized by academia and industry alike, and a new concept, e-maintenance, has been coined.

The main problem of the present work was "How ICT can be used for integrating various data and information to provide better decision support and improve productivity". The main problem addressed was divided into three sub research questions. (1) Which approach should be considered to develop e-maintenance systems? (2) How can web and agent technologies be used in e-maintenance? (3) Which ICT architecture and ICT tools should be used to enhance productivity in the organization/maintenance department and the decision-making process? The research process in this study was based on design science, .i.e. constructive research approach. However, during the first phases of the study has empirical studies been conducted to get an overall understanding of the domain of study.

The present study first presents the state of the art. It was found that in many research projects the application of ICTs to condition-based maintenance (CBM) has been part of the whole work. Since CBM is the most desirable maintenance strategy it needs more focused attention. However,it was found that limited consistent and systematic efforts have been made, in an isolated manner,in industry and academia. A few researchers are using mobile devices, especially personal digital assistants (PDA) with embedded technology and even fewer with web technology.

The study continues by presenting e-maintenance solutions. It goes through the modelling phase in the development of a system and suggests an ontology approach. Further, the use of web and agent technologies on a conceptual level was studied and an architecture was proposed for the same purpose, i.e. e-maintenance. Finally, a prototype was developed with the use of the ICTs tools and an architecture was proposed, Web and mobile architecture. It is an n-tier architecture, where the main client was a mobile device, i.e. PDA. The developed system with the use of various ICTs, viz. web technology, mobile device and wireless communication is believed to make maintenance personnel more productive and help to achieve better decisions.