A case study of knowledge management in a large software company: : How knowledge workers cope with large amounts of information

This master thesis is a qualitative case study, carried out at Microsoft Norway. I have investigated different processes and strategies that are used for information distribution, work performance measurement, and learning in the organization. The thesis is interdisciplinary, and adopts theoretical perspectives from sociology, pedagogy and informatics. The main theme of the thesis is Knowledge Management (KM), in the context of strategies for information management and learning in an organization in the knowledge-based society. KM strategies in the organization provide the employees with large amounts of information, and a finding of this study is that the amount of information can be a source of stress for some employee. It is important for the employees to have strategies to cope with the information in order to feel that they can master their work situation. I have identified two forms of information management: managing information flow, and managing information demand. These categories are dependent on whether or not the employees get required information from the organization, or seek it out on their own initiatives. Finally, I discuss how of information management is related to learning from a pedagogical perspective. I also discuss the notion of corporate culture in relation to KM strategies, and conclude that KM strategies in this case study have become an integrated part of the corporate culture and normal work practice

Fighting Depression at Christmas

Depression is a hard thing to understand and an even harder thing to explain. But you don’t have to ‘get it’ to help your loved ones this holiday season. Posting about factors that contribute to depression from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world. http://inallthings.org/fighting-depression-at-christmas

Man blir som man jobbar : hur organisationskultur påverkar bilden av oss själva och vad vi klarar av

Organisationskultur präglar individer och grupper på olika plan, medvetna som omedvetna. Studier visar bland annat att vår bild av vad vi klarar av, vår så kallade self-efficacy, påverkas av vilken kultur vi befinner oss i. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka hur organisationskultur upplevs av medarbetare och hur de upplever att den påverkar deras syn på sig själva och sin förmåga. Sju personer från ett ungt och expansivt företag, vars kulturfilosofi har blivit medialt uppmärksammad och hyllad, intervjuades. Resultatet visade bland annat att gemensamma värderingar och normer, såvida de är identifierbara, gör det lättare för medarbetarna att arbeta i samma riktning och tydliggör företagets förväntningar och ambitioner. Relationen kollegor och avdelningar emellan upplever man som viktigt för att känna trygghet i att be om hjälp och lägga fram förslag. Den direkta kopplingen mellan kultur och self-efficacy beskrivs som svår att själv sätta ord på, vilket till viss del kan förklaras med teorier som menar att denna påverkan ofta sker på ett omedvetet plan

Det ohotade torskbeståndet : Bilden av sexköparen i Sedlighets-vännen runt 1900

In several stages during the 19th century, a so-called regulatory system was introduced to govern the prostitution market in Stockholm. These sets of laws meant, among other things, that prostitution was permitted and that prostituted women were obliged to undergo compulsory gynecological examinations to ensure that they were not carriers of venereal infection. In parallel with the regulatory system, rigorous resistance work was carried out to try to abolish all forms of prostitution. In 1878, the Swedish Federation was formed - an organization that wanted to achieve two things: to abolish public prostitution and to strengthen morals in society. In their magazine Sedlighets-vännen the members of the organization published debate articles, columns and testimonies regarding sexual health, morality and the, in their opinion, unjustified regulatory system. The main goal was to advocate for the abolition of prostitution and to influence the public in regards of prostitution and morality. In this essay, I intend to highlight the role that the “prostitution client”, an often overlooked part, has historically played in the Swedish sexual political field. I do this by performing a discourse analysis of a number of articles published in Sedlighets-vännen. My research implies that several depictions of the male buyer and men overall are found within the material. The main purpose of this essay is to examine how the members of the organization viewed men overall, and the male sex buyers in particular. The role of the buyer has not been properly researched, hence a report of this kind fills in a gap in the history of prostitution

Det ohotade torskbeståndet : Bilden av sexköparen i Sedlighets-vännen runt 1900

In several stages during the 19th century, a so-called regulatory system was introduced to govern the prostitution market in Stockholm. These sets of laws meant, among other things, that prostitution was permitted and that prostituted women were obliged to undergo compulsory gynecological examinations to ensure that they were not carriers of venereal infection. In parallel with the regulatory system, rigorous resistance work was carried out to try to abolish all forms of prostitution. In 1878, the Swedish Federation was formed - an organization that wanted to achieve two things: to abolish public prostitution and to strengthen morals in society. In their magazine Sedlighets-vännen the members of the organization published debate articles, columns and testimonies regarding sexual health, morality and the, in their opinion, unjustified regulatory system. The main goal was to advocate for the abolition of prostitution and to influence the public in regards of prostitution and morality. In this essay, I intend to highlight the role that the “prostitution client”, an often overlooked part, has historically played in the Swedish sexual political field. I do this by performing a discourse analysis of a number of articles published in Sedlighets-vännen. My research implies that several depictions of the male buyer and men overall are found within the material. The main purpose of this essay is to examine how the members of the organization viewed men overall, and the male sex buyers in particular. The role of the buyer has not been properly researched, hence a report of this kind fills in a gap in the history of prostitution

Testmetodik för vintertestning av el- och hybridfordon

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Implications of myocardial dysfunction before and after aortic valve intervention

BACKGROUND Postoperative heart failure in the setting of aortic valve surgery results in poor long-term survival. We hypothesized that there could be a myocardial factor that is not addressed by risk scores currently available. We speculated that this myocardial factor could be diastolic dysfunction. By evaluating postoperative heart failure, the EuroSCORE, the NT-proBNP level, and diastolic function, we might achieve a deeper understanding of the outcome for individuals with postoperative heart failure. METHODS This research project was built upon four cohort studies. The first two studies (I and II) were retrospective in nature, and studies III and IV were prospective, observational, and longitudinal. All work was based on data from clinical and national databases. In Study I, we compared the outcome of patients with or without postoperative heart failure, evaluated according to the preoperative risk score. In Study II, we explored the effect of underlying heart disease on the preoperative level of NT-proBNP and the relationships between NT-proBNP and severe postoperative heart failure and short-term mortality. In Study III, we described the dynamics of NT-proBNP, from a preoperative evaluation to a six-month follow-up, in patients that underwent one of two different procedures: a surgical aortic valve replacement and a transcatheter implantation. We related both pre- and postprocedural NT-proBNP levels to one-year mortality. In Study IV, we evaluated diastolic function in patients that underwent surgical aortic valve replacement and its influence on outcome. We also evaluated NT-proBNP levels and postoperative heart failure as predictors of long-term mortality. RESULTS Study I This study included 397 patients that underwent isolated surgical aortic valve replacements. Of these, 45 patients (11%) were treated for postoperative heart failure. With an average follow-up of 8.1 years (range 5.2-11.2), among patients at low risk (EuroSCORE≤7), the crude five-year survival rates were 58% in patients with postoperative heart failure and 89% in those without postoperative heart failure (p&lt;0.001). Among patients with postoperative heart failure, those classified as low risk had the same poor long-term prognosis as those classified as high risk (EuroSCORE&gt;7). In the high risk group, survival rates were similar between patients with or without postoperative heart failure (57% vs. 64%; p=0.60). Study II This study included a cohort of 2978 patients with coronary artery disease, aortic stenosis, and mitral regurgitation. Preoperative NTproBNP levels were found to be 1.7-fold higher in patients with aortic stenosis than in patients with coronary artery disease and 1.4-fold higher in patients with mitral regurgitation than in patients with coronary disease. The power of preoperative NT-proBNP for predicting severe postoperative heart conditions was good among patients with coronary heart disease and patients with mitral regurgitation, but not as good among patients with aortic stenosis. NT-proBNP also showed good discriminating power for short-term mortality among patients with coronary artery disease. Moreover, NT-proBNP was found to be an independent predictor for both severe postoperative heart failure and short-term mortality in patients with coronary artery disease. Study III This study included 462 patients that underwent preoperative evaluations for aortic valve disease. Aortic valve interventions elicited a rise in NT-proBNP that was more pronounced in patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement compared to patients undergoing transcatheter valve implantation. No deterioration in NT-proBNP was observed during the waiting time before the intervention, despite a median duration of four months. At six months after the intervention, NT-proBNP levels had decreased to or below the preoperative levels in all groups. Among patients that received surgical aortic valve replacements, pre-and early postoperative NT-proBNP levels showed good discriminatory power for oneyear mortality. This discriminatory power was not observed among patients that had undergone a transcatheter procedure; those patients had higher levels of both pre- and postoperative NT-proBNP compared to patients that had undergone surgery. Study IV We evaluated 273 patients that underwent aortic valve surgery. High left ventricular filling pressure was present in 22% (n=54) of patients at the time of surgery. At six months after surgery, diastolic function deteriorated in 24/193 (12%) patients and improved in 27/54 (50%) patients. Diastolic dysfunction was not found to be associated with long-term mortality. However, both postoperative heart failure and preoperative NTproBNP levels were associated with increases in long-term mortality. In a multivariable Cox analysis, NT-proBNP remained predictive of long-term mortality. CONCLUSION Postoperative heart failure contributed to long-term mortality, even in patients considered to be at low risk preoperatively. Our results suggested that pressure overload, followed by a volume overload led to a NTproBNP response that was more pronounced than the ischemia response. Elevated levels of NT-proBNP were associated with both short- and long-term mortality. In these studies, we could not corroborate the notion that high left ventricular filling pressure was associated with long-term mortality

Waiting for a new kidney : The individual's experience

Kronisk njursvikt ökar varje år och vid terminal njurinsufficiens ses njurtransplantation som förstaval av behandling. Behovet av donerade njurar är större än tillgången, vilket leder till en lång väntan för individen. Studiens syfte var att beskriva individers upplevelser i väntan på en njurtransplantation. Metoden var en litteraturstudien där tio vetenskapliga artiklar granskades och analyserades. I analysen framkom tre teman som utgjorde resultatet: behandling för att överleva där dialysbehandlingen sågs som en begränsning i livet och gjorde det svårt att leva som dem gjort tidigare, känna hopp där en transplantation var något att hoppas på, ett sätt att ta sig ur dialysen och få tillbaka sitt gamla liv, samt känna hopplöshet där rädsla för att njurtransplantationen aldrig skulle bli av och känslor av att vara på is i väntan uppkom. Slutsatsen är att behandlingen påverkade upplevelsen av väntan och ledde till att livet var på is, det centrala i livet var att få en transplantation som skulle förbättra livet. För att underlätta situationen för individer i väntan på transplantation finns det ett behov av att det forskas på hur sjuksköterskans bemötande kan stötta individer i väntan.Chronic kidney failure is increasing every year and at end-stage renal disease kidney transplantation is seen as the first choice of treatment. The need for donated kidneys is greater than the supply, leading to a long wait for the individual. The study aimed to describe individuals' experiences while waiting for a kidney transplant. The method was a literature study where ten scientific articles were reviewed and analyzed. The analysis revealed three themes that formed the result: treatment in order to survive where the dialysis treatment was seen as a limitation in life and made ​​it difficult to live as they did before, feel hope where the transplantation was something to hope for, a way to get out of dialysis and regain the old life, and feel hopelessness where fear that the kidney transplant would never happen and feelings of being on hold while waiting arose. The conclusion is that the treatment affected the experience of waiting and it led to the feeling of being on hold, the central focus of life was the transplant that would improve their lives. To improve the situation of people waiting for a transplant, there is a need for research on how nurse's attitude can support individuals in anticipation

"Jag saknar dem mer än vad de saknar mig." : En kvalitativ intervjustudie om äldre människors upplevelser av ensamhet

Sammanfattning Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka upplevelser av ensamhet hos äldre personer som bor på omvårdnadsboende. I tio kvalitativa intervjuer frågade vi personer boende på omvårdnadsboende i åldern 80 till 100 år om deras upplevelser av ensamhet. Resultatet delades in i tre teman: negativa känslor av ensamhet, frånvaro av negativa känslor av ensamhet och faktorer som motverkar känslor av ensamhet. I en kvalitativ innehållsanalys analyserade vi resultatet genom att använda oss av Aaron Antonovskys KASAM-teori, Abraham Maslows behovshierarki, Julian Rotters teori om kontrollfokus och Lars Tornstams teori om gerotranscendens. Studien visade att vanliga faktorer som ledde till negativa känslor av ensamhet hos våra informanter var avsaknad av sociala relationer och brist på egenkontroll. Frånvaro av negativa känslor av ensamhet föranleddes av närhet till personal på boendet, att vara en person som inte var i stort behov av social samvaro, och att ha möjlighet att röra sig fritt utan hjälpmedel. De främsta faktorerna som motverkade känslor av ensamhet var meningsfulla sociala relationer, fritidsintressen och god hälsa.