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.

The starting point of this essay was the frustration I felt after having read the novel Nadja (1928) written by the French surrealist André Breton. The title promises the story of someone called Nadja but the promise stays unfulfilled. Recognition of this phenomenon, where a man writes a book about a woman, but the woman hardly is seen, made me want to examine it further.Using the theories of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan I analyze the relation between the male narrator and his female object. I also compare Nadja to a precursor: the novel Bruges-la-morte (1892) of the Belgian symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach. Their stories are, to a large degree, similar.

The purpose of this thesis is to gain understanding of how companies proactively can manage their reputation. The thesis analyzes three multinational companies in Sweden and uses two theoretical approaches - the reputation risk view and the reputation strengthening view - to gain an overall perspective of how companies work with their reputation. It focuses on investigating which key areas of reputation risk the focal companies identify and how they manage the reputation risks within these areas. Moreover, it examines which stakeholders the companies believe are most critical from a reputation point of view and in what ways the companies work with strengthening their reputation among those stakeholders. In order to find a general approach, the thesis investigates the similarities and differences that exist between the respective companies in the study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the authors of Matthew and Luke describe Joseph; The main aim is to see how the picture of him is drawn in the infancy narratives of their respectiveGospels; what unites, and what distinguishes the pictures of the two evangelists' account of Joseph,as a character and as a father.With the help of both textual and grammatical criticism, this study investigates - pericope bypericope - different aspects of Joseph's participation in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke; his relationship to the child and the mother, the terms used to describe him, and his overall modusoperandi. This essay builds its structure upon the individual study of each pericope, with the aim of painting a general and summarized picture.From the outset of already formulated uniting characteristics of the two gospels, as stated in Raymond E Brown's The Birth of the Messiah this study proposes that more can be said about the common features of Matthew and Luke, especially concerning Joseph's both character and relationto the child. First, this study suggests that both Matthew and Luke describe Joseph as the legal father of Jesus; second, both evangelists seems to describe Joseph as observant of Jewish law andcustom.The main impression of the two evangelists' birth narratives is however the differencesconcerning the description of Joseph. This study shows that there is one major common feature: the ambivalence evident in the evangelists' way of describing Joseph. On the one hand, both Matthew and Luke prescribe Joseph some importance; Matthew by describing Joseph and letting him act,Luke by calling him father and parent.

Den här studien berör några av de miljöpsykologiska grunderna i Alnarps Rehabiliteringsträdgårds uppbyggnad. Den ger förslag på hur karaktären rofylld kan förstärkas och hur säsongen kan förlängas i den restorativa delen av välkomstträdgården med växter som tilltalar flera av våra sinnen. Deltagarna som kommer till trädgården har i regel stressrelaterade åkommor såsom utmattningssyndrom och har varit sjukskrivna en längre tid. De är ofta mycket känsliga på grund av fysisk och psykisk utmattning. Studier visar att deltagarna har behov av en kravlös miljö där de kan få vara ostörda.

The aim of this study is to understand the situation on the Swedish Market for Drugstores and a creation of a new approach to marketing research, based on the thesis? methodological proceeding. With the help of different methodological approaches and different theories the study's purpose will be solved in an uncommon, untraditional way..

This study is an investigation of how fa?adism can be understood as an act of conservation and compensation in Sweden, through the definition of fa?adism as the act of retaining or reconstructing an existing fa?ade with the construction of a new building behind the fa?ade. The study is executed through an investigation and analysis of the definition of fa?adism, arguments for and against fa?adism related to authenticity, and through an analysis of how current legislation, policies and charters regarding conservation and/or compensation can support or counteract fa?adism. The first part of this study is executed through a literature study of fa?adism on an international level.

This thesis has its focuson media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet the American newspaper The New York Times. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media?s coverage character over time.

The aim of this study is to investigate how the female author, Charlotte Brontë, describes the development of her female protagonist in Jane Eyre and to compare this to how the male author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, describes the development of his male protagonist in Crime and Punishment, inside the patriarchal 19th century.My basic idea is that both characters in these two books have to reach their own unknown to find satisfaction and a new existence, and I want to investigate what the characters have to go through to find that existence. To help me in my exploration of Jane Eyre I make use of Gilbert and Gubars? book The Madwoman in the Attic and in the case of Crime and Punishment, I make use of Pelikan Straus? article ??Why did I say ?Women!??? Raskolnikov Reimagined?. Both authors discuss literature from a gender perspective, but without comparing female and male characters or authors with each other, which I believe is important for a more holistic understanding of gender issue.The conclusion of this essay is that these books are describing the main characters? evolution towards their personal unknown with the same tools, a double self, an important symbol, and in the end a love partner that embodies that unknown.

The purpose of this master thesis is to present a model that illuminates the important factors when deriving technical information from market data within a company. For companies to be able to become and stay competitive in the market, product quality is an important factor. Whilst good product quality leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty, lack of quality brings costs in service and replacements. To improve product quality, the developers need information and knowledge about what quality issues affect existing products. Most companies gather data from market about known issues, but in order eliminate known quality issues in new products; this data has to be transformed into information and knowledge.

This paper describes the redesign of a site (Kolonn.se). Some of the problems with the site were a lack of structure and a design that was unclear both visitor and search engines. The site now has a new design and structure that has been taking form in Axure prototypes that has been tested and applied into WordPress. The results are a site with a new main menu, new graphic profile and logo. Also SEO-adapted content such as correctly structured headers, meta tags, descriptions and key words that has been implemented in the content.

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the relation between the spatial and individual structures in Paul Austers City of Glass. The interpretative discussion is focused on the novels metafictive aspects. The analyses consists that Quinn, the main character, is linked to the city environment because of his function as detective, flânuer and author. According to Baudelaire, Benjamin and Berman the two last positions are fundamental in the literary citystructure, as well as in the formation of individuality and modernity..

This research explains and describes the role music notations may play in an unconventional way. The aim of this research is to show that by balancing composition, interpretation and improvisation, the performer(s) could produce or open the door to a reservoir of new sounds, which could emerge through a composer?s awareness of the need to balance these elements. That act of balancing depends on the musician?s interpretation through their interaction with the music notation, with their action process on the instrument and each other.

Detta arbete utgör specifikation, implementation och utvärdering av ett läroverktyg sett till hur man säkerställer att en ensam utvecklare lyckas i varje enskild problemdomän. Detta nås genom en metodik för kravinsamling och specificering grundad i Co-Creation, designmönster och kodstrukturering som stöd i själva utvecklingen samt agil utvecklingsmetod sett ur perspektivet av en ensam utvecklare..

This graduation thesis is about baths and beach like places in city centers. It focuses on recreation and the creation and development of public, social spaces in the city containing water as a visual and useable element. The thesis is divided into three parts; background, inspiration and application. The background examines four factors which we consider important for the occurrence of inner city baths; water, the history of bathing, inner city recreation and social life in public places. A discussion of the (future) importance of inner city baths and beach like places' is then presented. The inspirational part is divided into examples of existing places and examples of types of places. The first is used in an attempt to examine the function and importance of inner city baths and beach like places as well as the opportunities and challenges associated with them. The latter contains a presentation of six categories developed by us to facilitate the planning of inner city baths and beach like places.