The possibility and the right to be able to communicate with municipalities or other state companies and politicians are natural for the Swedish citizens. However, they may be unaware that this communication process is called citizen dialogue.Today there are so many ways to communicate; one-way communication is not possible in the same way as before. It is above all social media such as Facebook, which has opened the gates one could only dream of.  Via a medium such as Facebook creates a strong citizen dialogue in which the municipality and citizens communicate openly and ask questions and give response.The purpose of this study is to find out how Karlstad?s municipality uses, and maintains, citizen dialogue on Facebook. What are the guidelines and how do the municipality use these? In this paper a qualitative expert interview and a qualitative content analysis has been used to answer the purpose of the essay.

The purpose of this study is to ? through a discourse analysis ? examine how the parliamentary committee ? Ansvarskommittén ? legitimizes the need for merging administrative regions. The committee?s investigation is what underlies the present debate on regionalisation and the merging of regions in Sweden. To carry out this discourse analysis, I have used ?What?s the problem represented to be??, by Carol Lee Bacchi as an analytical framework.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

AbstractAs human beings, we are all governed by our innate instinct that to kill another human being, or to just inflict pain on another, is to go against what makes us human. Still, it happens every day, far and near. Some of these killings happens in war-like situations, where atrocities against humanity occur. The international community has since the founding of UN in 1945, a duty to intervene where crimes against the human rights occur. This is a difficult task, because, in order to intervene and help those in need, the situation might postulate states violating states sovereignty.

The following thesis is examining compliance with EU-law from a member state perspective. The variation in the compliance level between the member states from 1995 to 2005 is analyzed to prove the fact that the Nordic member countries during the measured time period experienced a low number of infringements. The infringements that did occur were resolved faster and more efficient in the Nordic countries then in the other member states. The theory used to explain the Nordic compliance rate is divided between external and internal pressure in a pull and push model. The external pressure is illustrated with argumentative persuasion from the EU-commission to the individual member states; how the state responds to the persuasion in order to act compliant.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att försöka reda i litteraturen kring två välkända begrepp inom Affective Forecasting nämligen Impact Bias, som innebär att människor har en tendens att överskatta i vilken utsträckning de kommer att uppleva en viss känsla i en framtida situation än vad som senare visar sig vara fallet, och Empathy Gaps, som innebär att människor har en tendens att underskatta i vilken grad känslotillstånd kommer att påverka deras preferenser i en framtida situation samt pröva dessa begrepp i en och samma enkätundersökning. Etthundra sextiotvå studenter, slumpvist uppdelade i två grupper, Känslogrupp och Preferensgrupp, deltog frivilligt i undersökningen. Enkätundersökningen var en mixad design med grupp (känsla kontra preferens) som mellangruppsfaktor och förtest kontra eftertest som inomgruppsfaktor. I studien visade samtliga gruppers resultat i linje med Impact Bias teorin, dvs. att deltagarna i både Känslogrupp och Preferensgrupp skattade lägre i eftertest (actual) än pretest (forecasting).

The aim of this paper was to illuminate the effect of mentalizationbased psychotherapy. The patients in the survey group were interviewed before and after treatment with regard to specific symptoms of borderline personality disorder and symptoms of other personality disorders with the semi structured interviews ZAN-BPD and SCID-II. Open interview questions that were worked up in a qualitative manner were as well put to the patients that had received the treatment program. A focus group interview with the staff working with the concept within the frame of the MBT-team of Psychiatry southwest in Stockholm was also carried out. The result shows on a group level between the pre and post measuring a reduction of specific borderline symptoms like impulsivity and cognitive symptoms.

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

The hypocrisy of democracy is to help autocratic rulers to stay in power because it benefits their own country. This thesis examines how the United States of America justified their cooperation with the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during the period of 1953-1979, until he was overthrown by his own people. This case-study doesn´t make general conclusions about the US foreign policy towards other countries except Iran.The theoretical starting point for the empirical analysis is the political dilemma of dirty hands. With the analytical instrument, constructed with a normative analysis about the concept of dirty hands, it´s possible to discover which ethical discipline the American presidents had to uphold to justify their actions.There are three different aspects of their cooperation which are lifted in this thesis. The first one is about the circumstances that made them begin their cooperation, the second regards the features of the cooperation.

The aim of this study is to examine and analyze how management control mechanisms evolve within an organization when a requirement of return on equity is imposed, as well as why the mechanisms evolve the way they do. A case study was performed on Samhall, a Swedish state-owned company, which has the aim to help people with disabilities develop by providing meaningful work. The framework provided by Samuelsson, defining five means of control in organizations was used to structure the study. Further, theories within New Public Management have been used to provide the reader with a proper background to the research area. Theories from the institutional field of organizational research have also been used to provide further depth to our analysis.

Who is responsible for youth policy implementation?This thesis attempts to deepen our understanding of Swedish and Nordic youth policy. Youth policy is cross-sectoral and includes all the decisions and measures affecting the conditions of young people. National youth policy therefore concerns young people's life situations in a number of different areas, such as work, housing, education, health, leisure and influence. The purpose of the study is to increase the knowledge of youth policy work the last century by understanding the impact of youth research concerning adults' role in youth policy implementation. A mixed method approach has been applied to the study: interviews, documents and youth theory have been analysed.

The Swedish exit tax legislation in Chapter 22. § 5 p. 4 IL states that businesses who change its tax residence to another Member State within the EES are taxed as having its assets sold at the time of the change of domicile. This legislation was declared incompatible with the freedom of establishment in case RÅ 2009 ref. 30 due to the fact that businesses who changed tax residence were treated worse than businesses that remained within the Member State of origin.

The aim of this thesis was to study financial support within the Church of Sweden and the view of the church?s diaconal work. This was done with a quantitative method where a survey sent to a number of churches containing questions about financial support within the church and how they, the respondents, looked at the church?s role as a welfare agent. Of the almost 200 congregations only 23 congregations responded.

This thesis rests on the theory and methodology of discourse theory. By viewing social reality as constituted by discourses, meanings that are taken for granted can be challenged.The events of September 11th 2001 resulted in the American war on terror. This thesis explores the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on the Russian image of the conflict in Chechnya.Discourse theory is applied to shed light on how the conflict over Chechnya is discursively constructed by the Russian state and media. The discourse is organized in three thematic sections: Identity, Enemy Images and Islam. Russia establishes itself as a member of the Western civilisation.

When someone dies there will always be an inheritance, an inheritance that earlier has been seen as a national concern. However, every year there are about 450 000 deaths within the European Union linked to more than one country, either when the deceased has changed his state of residence or when he has assets in another state, for example a Swedish national with a summer house in Spain. The problem is to determine which na-tional law that is supposed to be applicable to the inheritance.There are two principles that can be applicable on the choice of law, the principle of na-tionality and the principle of residency. If the principle of nationality is used the inherit-ance will be regulated by the deceased`s citizenship while the principle of residency takes aim on the deceased´s last domicile instead. Conflicts can occur between the two principles so that the legacy must be divided between two different legislations.In October 2009 the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and authentic instruments in matters of succession and the creation of a European Certificate of Succession was presented, a regulation that will try to create harmonized rules on in-teralia the inheritance matters.