The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate if there might be a possiblecorrelation between young women´s fascination with the vampire narrative andtheir search for identity in the late modern age. With the help of contemporarysociological studies in the field of the late modern man and today?s youth culture,I?ve chosen to do qualitative interviews with eight young women in order to examinehow today?s society affects their process of identification. Lately we?ve been ableto see an enormous interest for books that deal with the vampire saga, and while thereaders are mostly young females, it brought me to ask the question why the combinationof teenage drama and vampires seems to be such a winning concept.We live in a time where most young females experience a lot of pressure trying to addup to the demands of society, and as the media keep producing images of youngwomen being thin and looking like supermodels, most teenagers feel a lot of pressureand anxiety trying to live up to such unnatural ideals that in the long run might lead tovarious health issues and eating disorders.As a result of this thesis I?ve found that the vampire narrative answers to some ofthe existential needs we have as members of a late modern society.

Finnish-born writer Susanna Alakoski?s novel Svinalängorna became a big success after being published in Sweden in April 2006. Though the novel has many themes in common with earlier literature written by and about Finnish immigrants in Sweden, little attention has been brought to this fact by reviewers and journalists. This essay examines connections between Alakoski?s novel and Finnish migrant literature in Sweden, mainly from the 1970s, and how these connections have been recognised by reviewers in Sweden and Finland.

Finnish-born writer Susanna Alakoski?s novel Svinalängorna became a big success after being published in Sweden in April 2006. Though the novel has many themes in common with earlier literature written by and about Finnish immigrants in Sweden, little attention has been brought to this fact by reviewers and journalists. This essay examines connections between Alakoski?s novel and Finnish migrant literature in Sweden, mainly from the 1970s, and how these connections have been recognised by reviewers in Sweden and Finland.

Introduction: On the surgical wards in most hospitals in Sweden patients with different surgical needs are cared for. Patients with gastrointestinal conditions are, for example, nurtured alongside patients with urological disorders or patients in need of observation for head trauma. When the nurse, in addition to these patients, have to care for patients with palliative care needs can be perceived as problematic for nurse and patient alike.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore nurses' perceptions of care for patients with palliative care needs on an acute surgical ward, based on a person-centered perspective.Method: A focus group interview was conducted with the strategic selection of nurses from two acute surgical wards in a county hospital in western Sweden. The data from the interview were analyzed with qualitative directed, deductive content analysis with person-centered care as a theoretical framework. The theoretical background shows that person-centered care includes partnership, participation and structured documentation.Results: The results of this study show that even a fourth category, organization, emerged and needed to be reported.

This essay reflects upon how recruiters working at a recruitment-agency interpret their gender equality plan and their understanding of the term gender equality. This was done by semi-structured interviews with five recruiters. Through theories concerning the gender system, organization theory with a gender perspective and the doing-gender-perspective we have come to the conclusion that the employees of the company lack a coherent interpretation of gender equality. Concerning the gender equality plan there were diverse understandings of its meaning and the application of the plan is partly insufficient. As a recruitment agency there are a number of specific difficulties related to working towards gender equality.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how adults who grew up in an exposed habitat experienced their upbringing and society's efforts and how it affected them in adult life. The method that we used was qualitative interviews. This method has given us a rich material, we believe. The results were analyzed by means of the theory we used and past research in the field. All of our respondents have in common that they were insecure in childhood.  And everyone has had negative consequences of their childhood into adulthood.

In order to answer the question in the title, a cross-cultural analysis of two countries was done. Countries chosen were the Republic of Latvia and the Kingdom of Spain. The need for this research was suggested by increased cross-border business activities inside the European Union, and the lack of previous studies involving new Member States. The aim of the research was to see what environmental factors influence advertising adaptation in the European Union, as well as to evaluate the applicability of a standardisation approach. According to the theory, there are three external factors that influence the creation of a global advertising.

Is it possible, and suitable, to use multimedia in classic literature studies at Swedish upper secondary school? What alternatives are there?  Is there any foundation in the curriculum for an expanded conception of text as in multimedia?  Will the conception literacy support use of multimedia in classic literature studies, and in what ways? How do we generally look upon the definition text, is it only printed letters, or something more? To get an answer to the questions we decided to examine a number of theories, Gardner?s theory about the different intelligences, the conception literacy and the expanded text concept. In these three theories we took our starting-point for the following work. The main subjects became two interactive sights on Internet and one CD-ROM, all containing classic literature. Our previous knowledge in this subject field was very meager.  This work has given us an opportunity to discover some of the multimedia that is available, and the result we have come to is that multimedia absolutely belongs in studies of classic literature as well as in other subjects.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate emotions and collective identity in the handicraftmovement. Which are the collective identities of craft movement, and is it possible to speak ofan over all collective identity among the handicraft people? I will also examine the emotion workboth on individual and group level.Eight qualitative interviews were conducted to achieve the aim of this thesis. Research haspreviously drawn attention to handicraft from a gender and a historical perspective but neverfrom an emotional one. The theoretical framework derives from an emotion sociologicalperspective where Collins interaction rituals, emotional energy and Hochschild?s emotionmanagement is the main theses.

The communication and mediation of information and news has, under the latest decades, increased into an incalculable amount. In the newsflow that has come up it has become more and more urgent to sort and select the relevant and correct news. Simultaneously as the information has become one of the most important goods for the western world, the criticism against media has become more loudvoiced and especially the criticism aims at the fact that publicness has become less public and the public conversation is nowadays filtrated through media. The American Joey Skaggs can be reckoned among with the group of media critics, but his course of action and methods to reach out with his critical view, stand out strikingly from the traditional media critics. Instead of, as most, aiming the criticism against media, from an outside perspective, Skaggs chooses to attack the media from the inside.

Objective: From the patient?s perspective describe communication difficulties, which can arise, and how they are handled in their contact with public health care and illustrate their needs of communication.Method: A study of literature was carried out to receive a background and an insight in previous research concerning the subject area. Twelve women with hearing loss was asked to complete a questionnaire, with open questions, regarding communication difficulties in health care situations.Sample: For the literature review, scientific papers were selected via the database, PubMed using relevant keywords. Seven were selected for closer review. For the survey study twelve women were asked to participate which ten of those responded.Results: The study of literature shows that communication difficulties occur in public health care between patients with hearing loss and the nursing staff.

Abstract__________________________________________________Sara NilssonAnnette OlofssonMatematik ses som tråkigt och svårt? hur kan elevers motivation och självkänsla hanteras?Mathematics is viewed as boring and difficult? how can pupils? motivation and confidence be dealt with?Antal sidor: 42__________________________________________________This report delves into primary school pupils? difficulties in mathematics, with emphasis on their lack of confidence and motivation. By researching literature and Internet sources associated to this issue, an in-depth view of these problems has been illuminated. Two teachers at a Swedish primary school were interviewed, in order to get their perspective of the matter. Questionnaires were sent to two teachers at an English primary school and their responses were returned.

With a background in the 17th century?s English political events, but also the ideological scene of that time, the purpose of this essay is to analyze two concepts, freedom and happiness, in Thomas Hobbes?s political writings. Hobbes is well known for his political works, mostly for Leviathan, where his thoughts about government and religion are exposed. But what does he say about freedom? And what about happiness? The study shows that Hobbes?s political thought is quite original from this aspect too.