The formation of sovereign states in regional blocks has become an essential feature in the world system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which motives and driving forces that affect the creation of projects of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World. By choosing the Latin American project of integration ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas) as a case of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World, the study investigates the motives expressed by the most prominent actors of the project, Venezuela and Cuba. ALBA is chosen as a representative and a unique case and through the consumption of the gramscian and the realist approaches, the essay defines two motives that affect the creation of projects of regional integration. As a way of investigating the actors? motives, the paper studies political statements, especially those of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and official positions expressed in central documents and declarations.

Today?s housing system for laying hens has limitations for the hens natural behavior. Despite the current law of prevention of cruelty to animals, this might implicate health problems for the hens. This degree project is aiming to improve the situation for laying hens in cage-systems. The aim with our project is to bring forward a draft of a cage that improves the welfare of laying hens.

Pica is a behavior that can be seen in several animal groups. In cats, it means that they are eating, chewing or licking on material that is non-food. In this study the data was collected through an online survey. In total 522 responses, of which 26% of the cats were exhibiting pica. It was found that 28% of the housecats and 26% of purebred cats exhibited pica.

Lupus is the result of an investigative project in illustration. In my degree-work I have investigated the different guises of the wolf, which I have thenillustrated visually combined with some portions of text. The result, presentedin the form of a book of 36 pages, is narrated in a poetic and free style with meas a personal author. The images of the book tell the story of both the wolf of fleshand blood, as well as the wolf as a symbol. My work is produced with the hope thatby talking about the wolf in a way other than the standard, new ways of regarding apresently endangered but valuable animal, can arise..

Background. Anesthetic-related death in small animal anesthesia is about ten times more common than in human anesthesia. Recent research identifies the early postoperative period as particularly risky and highlights the need for regular and careful monitoring of the veterinary patient during this period. Objective. The aims of this study were to investigate whether there are standard procedures in terms of regulated routine patient observations and record-keeping during the early postoperative period at Swedish veterinary clinics, and if there are any guidelines for monitoring the veterinary patient during recovery. Methods. A small survey including ten Swedish veterinary clinics was carried out as well as a literature review. Results.

The aim of this study was to compare activity, lying down and getting up behaviour, weight gain and cleanliness in heifers in cubicles versus on deep-litter. The study was conducted from autumn of 2005 until autumn of 2006 in a commercial organic dairy herd with 340 cows. In 2005 the farm rebuilt half of the young stock accommodation from deep-litter pens to cubicles. The experiment used 150 heifers of the breeds Swedish Red, Swedish Holstein and crossbreeds between these, all born on the farm. The animals were divided into three blocks based on breed and within each block they were sorted after increasing age. The youngest heifer in each block was randomly allocated to one of two groups, cubicle or deep-litter pen.

Mulesing är ett ingrepp som utförs på får i Australien för att förhindra att de drabbas av flugangrepp. Det är främst merinofår som drabbas av flugangrepp eftersom de har mer hudveck än andra fårraser. Merinoullen är ull av finare kvalitè och den används i kläder hos många företag runt om i världen. Mulesing eller The Mules Operation som det även kallas har praktiserats sedan 1929 och det innebär att fåren utsetts för ett kirurgiskt ingrepp med avsikt att avlägsna hudveck vid fårets bakdel. Verksamheten ökade i omfattning med tiden eftersom problemen med flugangrepp ökade alltmer.

ABSTRACT This study consists of a comparison between a public and a private organization that works with people with mental unhealth. The first organization is an authority that conducts investigations to determine if their clients are qualified to receive some sort of help in their daily lives as a part of the Swedish welfare system. The private organization works with offering different kinds of daily activities for people with mental unhealth as a work-training program or to help them create a daily routine in their lives. Our purpose with this paper is to compare the work of the two different organizations based on their organizational framework to see what similarities and differences there are in their work and their chosen approach in meetings with their clients. Our chosen method is that of semi-structured qualitative interviews with three different employees in each organization.

The trend in milk production is similar in Sweden and across the world; the farms are getting fewer but increasingly bigger. The costs for hiring workers are increasing, which results in more cows per animal keeper. Sensors can then be a great tool for keeping track of animals which need special attention. With a reported decreasing fertility, sensors that can detect oestrus even at low levels can be especially helpful in bigger herds to pinpoint the cows that may be in oestrus. The number of farms with dairy cows that install AMS, Automatic Milking Systems, are increasing, and that also increases the need for sensors to control milk quality and composition when there is no visual control of the milk by a milker before milking starts.For the sensor data to be useful you have to have software designed to analyze and interpret the data to get relevant information that the farmer can use.

BackgroundNumber of patients treated with medicine that has an anticoagulation character is constantly increasing. Chronic atrial fibrillation is the most common diagnosis being treated, but other diagnoses such as venous thrombosis), pulmonary embolism, stroke, coronary stent thrombosis and arterial thrombosis treated. There are a variety of anticoagulant drugs. In Sweden Warfarin is used as standard medicine for oral anticoagulation therapy.PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine and reflect nurses' experiences of working on anticoagulation clinic, and if he / she claims to have access to the necessary skills and resources to carry out a safe care.DesignThe study has a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews which were analyzed with an inductive approach. The interviews included six respondents.FindingsThe results showed that nurses who worked at anticoagulation Clinics had no specific training to operate these clinics.

The Swedish legislation (Socialtjänstlagen, SoL 5 kap 1§ 6 st.) state that the social welfare committee is particularly responsible for those children whom are in need of support and help after an adoption or custody matter has been decided. "Adoption - but at what price?" SOU 2003:49 is a state report with the purpose to investigate different aspects around international adoptions, which brings up and discusses what supports there is for adoptive families in Sweden. With this background and a special attention towards adoptive children's health conditions when arriving to their new country we decided to study the subject adoption. By interviewing different professionals and volunteers that work with adoptive families in Sweden the aim with this study was to acknowledge how they look upon the support the Swedish community offers for adoptive parents and also how they consider the knowledge about adoption among those who in their line of work can meet adoptive children is.

This master´s thesis in Library and Information Science examines the experiences of children who read to a dog. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the interactions between the librarian, the readingdog-handler, the child-ren and the dogs and what the benefits from the interactions might be. The aim is also to examine how the child-ren express their literacy during the readingsessions and how to develop the readingsessions at a specific library. The author follows a reading dog project for seven weeks, in collaboration with a specific school and library. Action research was used as a research strategy, and since action research is done on the basis of practice, a coll-laboration with the participating children, the librarian and the readingdog-handler was significant in this study.The theoretical framework concists of theory and concepts from the sociocultural theory developed by Ro-ger Säljö, and human-animal studies with concepts from Donna Haraway.

I detta examensarbete redovisas mitt förslag på utformning av en utomhusutställning på Parken Zoo i Eskilstuna. Studier har gjorts för att försöka reda ut hur målgruppen 3-10-åringar kan stimuleras och ledas genom utställningen. I arbetet ingår även en lekfull gestaltning av 16 utställningskomponenter i form av bostäder åt vanligt förekommande sörmländska djur.För att samla in data och kunskaper har flera observationer gjorts på barn i lekmiljöer. Jag har även gjort en introspektion och samlat data genom regelbunden kontakt med Parken Zoo. Studierna har visat att barn tycks lockas av lekredskap som inbjuder till aktivitet och att leken ofta sker i rumsligheterna mellan redskapen.

One of many difficult issues in veterinary medicine is the assessment of an animal's experience of pain. As a licensed veterinary nurse in Sweden you are obligated by law to work by the concept of evidence based medicine. To achieve this the author of this study sees the need for standardized methods of pain assessment. A Swedish version of Short form of the Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS-SF) has recently been translated and developed. Furthermore, a psychometric validation needs to be performed to ensure its validity and reliability.

Djurvälfärd vid tidpunkten för slakt är en fråga som engagerar allmänheten. De flesta nötkreatur i Sverige bedövas med bultpistol inför slakt, med syftet att befrias från onödigt lidande. Undersökningar visar dock att bedövningskvaliteten i många fall inte är tillräckligt hög efter skottet. Den här litteraturstudien syftar till att undersöka hur en god bedövningskvalitet säkrast kan uppnås vid bultbedövning, det vill säga vilka vapen, vilken träffpunkt och vilken skjutkraft som har visat sig ge bäst resultat, samt hur situationen ser ut i dagsläget. Tidigare studier har visat att mellan 8,7 och 31,8 procent av djuren inte uppnår en god bedövningskvalitet efter skottet och statistiken ser ännu sämre ut för tjurar och äldre djur. Vilka indikatorer som används för att bedöma bedövningskvaliteten varierar lite mellan olika slakterier men den vanligaste och förmodat säkraste indikatorn är att titta på djurets eventuella kornealreflexer. Skottets träffpunkt finns reglerad i lagstiftningen men studier har visat att även avvikelser från denna punkt kan ge en god bedövningskvalitet om vapnet som används har tillräckligt hög kapacitet.