AbstractA European identityA study of Manuel Castells criteria?s to create a European identityC-Essay in Political Science, by Helena Saagpakk, August 2007Supervisor: Björn ÅkerbergPhilosophers and visionaries dreamt early on the idea about a united Europe. This dream was destroyed by the two world wars during the first half of the 20th century. The first community was established in 1950 after the Second World War. This was the beginning of a peaceful cooperation between the member states, and the community later developed into the European Union.

Med utgångspunkt i en kritisk debatt gällande medias bristfälliga bevakning av EU är syftet med studien är att ta reda på hur den Europeiska unionen skildrades i svensk nyhetspress under 2000-talets första decennium. För att studera EU-journalistik tillämpas en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Med hjälp av ett kodschema registreras variabelvärden för artiklar från 20 slumpmässigt utvalda veckor mellan åren 2001?2010, i tidningarna Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet. För att förstå resultaten tas hjälp av ett teoretiskt ramverk med fokus på tidigare forskningsdiskurs samt resonemang kring en marknadsstyrd journalistik och nyhetsvärdering.

During 2008 we experienced an expansion of large scale investments in foreign farmland. This increasing trend has become a political hot-spot, but there is not much research available within the field. Due to a lack of research it remains a vital task to outline the potential effects of this trend. Drawing on existing ideas from some of the main actors within the field, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the latest G8 summit on agriculture, four main purposes are set out for this paper. First, to outline some of the underlying mechanisms behind the trend is considered crucial for the understanding of the nature of these investments.

Native spider silk is an attractive lightweight natural polymeric material with a unique combination of strength, extendibility and flexibility. Synthetic, recombinant spider silk is an attractive biomaterial with several possible fields of application. When a foreign material is introduced to blood, this can for example cause unwanted coagulation and complement activation. The aim of this study was to investigate if coatings of heparin or albumin could improve the blood compatibility of films of recombinant spider silk and to develop an initial method to do so. Hypothetically, objects like pacemakers, stents and dental implants could be covered with spider silk films of high blood compatibility to reduce potentially harmful foreign body reactions caused by the immune defense. Increased blood compatibility would likely lead to improvements for both the individual patients and the society thanks to reduced load on healthcare institutions. Our objective was to assess the blood compatibility of both functionalized and non-functionalized recombinant spider silk by evaluating coagulation and activation of the complement system of the immune defense. Coagulation was evaluated visually on glass slides and complement activation was analyzed by measuring the concentration of the complement system mediator C3a in blood samples that had been exposed to the different materials. This study introduces a non-toxic and easy performed method of improving the blood compatibility of recombinant spider silk films by adding a heparin coating. Heparin coated surfaces had statistically significantly higher blood compatibility than uncoated surfaces. The effects of albumin coating of films were less clear compared to the results of heparin coated films. Complement activation could not be evaluated because of high activation in all samples prior contact with the materials that were included in the study..

The Swedish Prime Minister, Tage Erlander, made a speech on the 22 of August 1961 in which he dismissed speculation that Sweden was seeking to abandon its neutral stance and non-alignment in foreign policy with a view to requesting membership of the European Economic Community. The reason was that the EEC was supposed to have a political part where a connection with NATO should have existed. This speech led to a domestic discussion which has been called the most intense debate of foreign affairs in recent history. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reactions of the other parliamentary parties to Erlander?s speech.

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.

 Introduction and research question: In the global media field, global expansion has become more common and is a way for media companies to reach out to a broader audience. Both advantages and disadvantages come with a global expansion and there are several cultural differences that have to be considered. This thesis will deal with the cultural differences and discuss how a Swedish media company efficiently goes about establishing in Vietnam. This leads us to this thesis' research question: How does a Swedish media company succeed in Vietnam? Purpose: This thesis' purpose is to find out what media companies do to successfully acclimate to the Vietnamese culture and the important aspects of the cultural differences to consider.Delimitation: In order to present a thesis with greater depth and acquire a deeper understanding, the study is limited to examine Swedish media companies and what intercultural aspects are important to consider when establishing in Vietnam. Method: The research we have done is based on interviews, which we thought could give us the accurate information and a good base to stand on.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the actor network of a high technology company in the textile industry called F.O.V. Fabrics. The background for doing this is a recent project, which we choose to call the Salt & Paper Battery Group, aiming to commercialize a newly discovered technology ? a battery based on cellulose from an alga. We start by examining a range of network theories in order to eventually shape a framework of our own.

Today many separated children and youth up to 18 years - children in the sense of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - flee from war and armed conflicts around the world. Many of them come to Sweden for protection and to apply for asylum.The aim of this study is to examine how the national Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå - TT - constructs the image of separated children and youth. The main research questions have been: How does TT construct the image of the separated refugee children? The more detailed questions put to examine this main question have been: what are the issues being focused in the reporting and what discourses, voices and sources are let into the journalistic material?The theoretical perspective should be considered as social constructionistic where the basic idea is that the image of the separated child also constructs the way society looks upon them, their rights and their needs, affecting how these children will be welcomed and treated when thay arrive in our society. The empirical study is a qualitative analysis of text, produced in the span 2007- April 20th 2010.

Media has a big actuating power over the public opinion. The image of reality that media choose to reproduce will affect the recipient view of reality. The case about Thomas Quick and its associated news coverage has been used as an example to illustrate the problematization regarding media imag-es and media framing attempt. The purpose of this essay was to illuminate how daily and evening newspapers works with various framing methods.The theoretical framework for this essay will discuss the media framing theory and its ramification attribute framing theory. This laid the foundation for the research question.

In 1970 professional boxing became illegal in Sweden and in 2009 the prohibition was removed.Just before both of these changes in the law there were debates in media where people argued forand against ilegalization. In the later debate the focus has shifted from professional boxing toinclude Mixed Martial Arts(MMA) as well. MMA was governed and bound by the same law asprofessional boxing.This purpose of this paper is to compare the debate in 1968-1969 with the debate in 2006. The twodebates resulted in two different outcomes, ilegalization of professional boxing in 1970 and thenlegalization of it 2009. Are there any reason for these differences? What is the reasoning behindthis? By using hegemonic masculinity as a guidance when examining the debates this paper istrying to understand how the discourse have changed over time.

Change is a recurring element in society and for sports clubs. When there is a change in society, this change may have an impact and change the condition for sports clubs and its leaders. Changes can be degraded into trends. This study has been delimited to study four social trends that research shows may have an impact on sports club, which are; Increased commercialization, changing demographics, changing communication patterns and increased individualization. To help sports clubs in their development it is of value to find out how these changes are perceived.

Three different factors are thought to be involved in the increased segregation in Stockholm: the living segregation, scientific and political dissonances and the social economical factor. Many segregated areas have many inhabitants with foreign background. Schools in these areas have a higher number of students with lower grades compared to other schools with higher number of students that are ethnical Swedes. Jordbromalmsskolan is a school in Haninge kommun that is one of the seven schools in Stockholms suburbs where students graduate with the lowest grades. The school is suffering from a very bad reputation because of many problems like fights between students and lack of resources like purchase stop.

This paper examines constructions of identities in Swedish news paper articles concerning the European Unions?s Tobacco Products Directive. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) supported by theories of discourse, semiotics and identity formation, this paper argues that constructions of a Swedish ?Us? are distinguished from a non-Swedish ?Them?. These constructions depends on categories such as use of tobacco, science, history and war, which are frequently used in the discourse to separate ?Us?, ?the good? from ?Them?, ?the bad?.

This two years master?s thesis consists of a domain analysis on the local Swedish newspaper Gefle Dagblad (GD). The domain analysis was developed by the Danish library and information scientist Birger Hjørland. The purpose of this theory is to understand the information behavior of individuals by studying the social and collec-tive context which surrounds this person. According to Hjørland, four different areas need to be studied in order to analyze a domain.