The master's thesis investigates how the concept traditional knowledge is represented by international organizations that are influential in development work and policy making. Departing from a theoretical framework drawing on Michel Foucault, constructed aspects of knowledge and the power relations knowledge production implies are highlighted.A recent interest within library and information science and practice to document this kind of knowledge raises questions about how traditional knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge and how knowledge organizational tools can be applied. Investigations, which critically explore the concept traditional knowledge, the power relations the concept creates as well as the interests and purposes it serves, have been surprisingly absent within the discipline. The focus in this master's thesis is how traditional knowledge is conceptualized by international organizations. A discourse analytical approach reveals the power relations that are inherent in their descriptions of traditional knowledge and how they describe the relevance of the concept for their work.

The postindustrial market increasingly demands service infused products to add more value to the customer in order to be competitive. Much research regarding digitalized services indicates that companies have to be innovative in order to compete on the market. However, companies within different industries face different challenges with digital service development. This study has been conducted because there are little known about the opportunities and the challenges different industries faces with a globalized market. Our research question is what the challenges are and what opportunities does strategic digital service development entails for companies.

De senaste decennierna har miljö- och klimatfrågor fått allt större uppmärksamhet på lokal såväl som global nivå. Idag kräver allt fler konsumenter att näringslivet engagerar sig i sociala och ekologiska frågor. Hållbarhetsredovisning är idag frivillig och är ett relativt nytt sätt att redovisa på där företagets ekonomiska, sociala och miljömässiga resultat tas upp. Miljömedvetenhet har även blivit en konkurrensfördel för företag inom skogsindustrin då jordens största hot mot miljön är den industriella användningen av trä. Viktigt för att nå framgång är dock inte enbart ökad reglering utan det är även essentiellt att skapa en kultur kring miljöarbetet där alla medarbetare är engagerade och känner delaktighet.

The purpose of my study is to investigate teacher?s perceptions of their mission in the preschool class, and how they work to promote children?s written language development. What methods and working methods they use to awaken curiosity and motivate children to read and write. I am using the qualitative research method to get answers to my questions. I have made four qualitative interviews with four teachers in preschool classes from different schools.My questions are:What conceptions does teachers have about their mission in a preschool class?What different methods and approaches does teachers use to stimulate and wake children?s curiosity for reading and writing development?The theoretical basis for my study is the socio-cultural perspective, where learning occurs in interaction.

Our premiss in this study is the escalating competition in the swedish newspaper market, which have become an issue regarding smaller editions for the newspapers, and some scientist have claimed that this has brought an sensational touch to their news. With this in mind, we have studied if a sensational touch is brought to the two biggest Swedish newspapersAftonbladet?s and Expressen?s first pages. Our purpose with the study is to look into the newspapers development regarding a more sensational newsworthiness on the front page over time. The use of quotes, images and news themes is indicators to measure the development.Trough a content analysis from three different years, 1972, 1992 and 2012 we have measured the data with the computer program SPSS.

In subsequent to Post-colonialism the African nations have dilated into different political directions. While some nations have established well-functioning democracies, others are still under authoritarian regimes. The aim of this thesis is to examine if civil society has an impact on democratic development in West Africa. Therefore the theoretical starting point is Putnam?s theory of social capital, but this study will also examine other possible causal explanations for democratic transition.This study will be based on a comparative analysis of Ghana and Guinea.

This master thesis is about sustainable city planning and its debate. It is also concerned with networking, communication and web-based communication. Theories of sustainable development are discussed, along with the importance of communication for sustainable development. The report is directed towards landscape architects, architects, town planners, other designers and other interested readers.MotivationI believe that there is a need for an increased discussion concerning sustainability. Sustainable development is an important issue for city planners.

The paper is a discourse analysis of the liberal environmental discourse in Sweden today. It is based on articles in two of the main liberal Swedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Sydsvenska Dagbladet, and a liberal periodical, Neo.The purpose of this study is to analyze how the environmental problems that have been produced by the industrialised society, especially global warming, are seen upon in the liberal discourse in Sweden today. The theoretical point of departure is a discourse analysis that as a method seeks to analyze the material to reveal what assumptions the discussion departs from, and what assumptions the discussions reject.The thesis concludes that the main trends in the discussions are to position the environment against the financial system and state that the capitalist system is the only system that can solve the environmental issues. The existing environmental problems are not denied, but constantly belittled and only considered to be a problem if it poses a direct threat to humans. The solution for these environmental problems is believed to be the strengthening of the financial system and the development of new technologies..

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to adjusting corporate goals so that they are not only based on maximizing corporate profits, but include ethical standards on socially desirable behavior (Boatright, 2008). Even though many companies have integrated CSR into their business operations, there are still many issues that are difficult to tackle. Especially Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in the global business environment face many challenging situations due to the fact that they often have linkages to countries where the local government is either unwilling or unable to take care of its responsibilities. MNCs often find themselves with increased responsibilities when they start solving some of the issues that earlier have been the sole responsibility of states. A specific case situation discussed in this paper is related to ?conflict minerals?.

Financial exploitation of children worldwide is a global problem, causing consequences for both the national economy and labor market, as well as the working child who is deprived of its rights of education and normal development. Pakistan has several national laws in order to work against and to regulate the existence of child labour. Another important mechanism to fight the financial exploitation of the children is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This Convention was ratified by Pakistan in 1990. As a result, new national laws have been admitted, already existing laws have been amended, educational projects have been established and the common knowledge on the problems regarding the subject have attracted a lot of attention.

The group of elderly people in Sweden will increase significantly in the future and science point out that the future elderly people will not accept today?s standards and offers of assistance in today?s public elderly care. Therefore public elderly care stands before a significant challenge in terms of development that has to be sustainable. New research also points out that middle managers can be a great strategic resource, and a founder of success, in the challenge of sustainable development. The aim of the report was to increase the knowledge about what middle managers in public elderly care think sustainable development has to embrace, when it comes to quality and personnel administration, in order to meet the needs of the future elderly people.

The actual project presents the development of a testing rig for a steam engine. A short overviewabout the development of steam engines is presented, until arriving to the development of thepresent engine, which will require to be tested in different ways.The testing rig studied on this project (based on a Lanchester engine) will be used to testdifferent materials and layouts for the group Piston-Cylinder.The engine is a high performance steam power engine, which is going to have a highpower/dimensions ratio, what will lead to require high performance components and materials.An introduction to the testing rig is presented, and the entire design project is done in order toreplace the disappeared documentation of the current testing rig, built on the 1970?s. Also somemodifications done in the original testing rig are presented, as well as some detected problemsand their possible solutions..

The purpose of this examination paper is to get an understanding as an upcoming teacher about how friends make an important impact on children?s identity development in school, their choice of friends circle and what kind of groups there can occur among them. With a deeper comprehension of these circumstances should an educationalist be more considerate and adapt his or hers education to prevent negative group formations and to be an outsider. To achieve my results I used a qualitative research method where I through observation handpicked eight students from upper level of compulsory school with different friend circles from two classes for further interviews. Beside this I observed students in their school environment for three days.

This study aims to illustrate the Leader approach and analyze the work of collaboration development within Leader. The idea has also been to describe some of the difficulties that might be encountered in this type of development work. By highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this approach we hope to enhance the chance that future work in similar projects can be implemented more easily. Leader is a tool and methodology used in the European Union (EU) for work on sustainable rural development and it has been used since 1991. The purpose of Leader is that by supporting rural projects they will gain social capital and development in the rural communities.

The purpose of this essay is to study if and how five South African educators work with music as a special pedagogical tool in children's language development. To achieve the purpose of this study, two research questions were created. As method, interviews of a qualitative character were chosen.  The aim of the method is to give the educators the opportunity to think about and use their own experience before answering the questions.The result shows that the South African educators are not using music as a special educational tool. They rather use music as an everyday educational tool to promote children's language development. The result indicates that music in educational activities promotes children?s communication with each other.