What kind of international actor is the European Union and how shall we define it? These are questions that many have tried to answer often by addressing the apparent uniqueness of the EU itself. One of these theories is Normative power Europe. A theory whose main argument is that the EU is best perceived as a changer of norms. My aim with this thesis is to test this claim and to see if the Union should be regarded as a normative power.

In 1989 the United States choose, after years of conflict, to carry out a military intervention in Panama, to remove Manuel Noriega, convicted for drug dealing and for threatening the lives of the Americans living in Panama. The aim of this study is to examine whether George H. W Bush?s arguments for the military intervention comply with the principles of the just war.The method chosen for this study is a qualitative literature study, based primarily on secondary data. It is a case study with two complementing theories, the theory of the just war and the world system theory.The result showed that the American intervention both can be justified and unjustified following the principles of the Just War Theory.

Denna uppsats syfte har varit att undersöka hur det flexibla arbetet upplevs och hanteras av fackförbund. Studiens huvudobjekt har varit tjänstemannaförbundet Unionen där fyra kvalitativa intervjuer gjorts och en rad officiella dokument granskats. Utöver Unionen så har två intervju gjorts med en deltagare var från Vision och Handelsanställdas förbund.Fackförbund möter idag nya typer av frågor. Det handlar om frågor som rör hur arbete idag organiseras och hur medlemmarnas inställning till fackens verksamhet förändrats. Det flexibla arbetet är en sådan fråga.Flexibelt arbetet som fenomen framstår som något komplext för fackförbund.

Kommunikation genom att använda människokroppen som  överföringsmedium, med kapacitiv koppling mellan hud och sensor, har varit ett pågående forskningsområde för PAN (Personal Area Network) sedan Thomas Guthrie Zimmerman introducerade tekniken 1995. Anledningen till detta är att undersöka fördelar och användningsområden för en kommunikationsmetod som ej sänder ut RF-signaler och därmed minska risken för obehörig avlyssning.Denna rapport beskriver ett examensarbete som undersöker möjligheten till eliminering av USB- till UART-konverterare på Microchip BodyCom genom mjukvaru-USB-stack och kombinera denna med Body Coupled Communication funktionalitet i en gemensam mikrokontroller. Vidare studeras om programkoden i Body Coupled Communication sändare kan modifieras för att utöka funktionaliteten.Det var givet i förutsättningarna att mikrokontroller från Microchip skulle användas, vidare var lågt pris respektive låg strömförbrukning viktigt, särskilt för sändaren. Metoden för att uppnå detta har varit användning av Microchip BodyCom development kit tillsammans med Microchip USB low pin count development kit och Microchip USB firmwareframework.Resultatet blev att USB- till UART-omvandlare kunde integreras med Microchip BodyCom genom att använda mjukvaru-USB-stack och en modifierad programkod för BodyCom i en gemensam mikrokontroller.Endast fantasin sätter gränsen för vad Body Coupled Communication kan användas till. Det skulle t.ex.

Title: Nätdejting för olika åldrar (Netdating for different ages)Author: Henri NekmouchePurpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what influence the medium Internethas had on building up relationships between people who have dated online, and tocompare two different age groups.Method/Material: In this study the author has conducted personal interviews with sixpeople who all have experienced Internet dating, and had their first contact with agirlfriend/boyfriend online. The questions asked were designed to help answering thepurpose of the study.Main results: This study shows that in general there is a positive view of Internet datingamong both groups. They appreciate the opportunities it provides, as they get to knowthe other persons personality first. Even so, it should be noted that they still tend to be abit ashamed to talk about Internet dating, and some don?t want to be associated with it.The communication pattern tend to be pretty much the same among both groups.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of profitability and capital structure in Swedish quoted companies during the period of 1990 to 2004. Further, the aim is to determine the relationship between profitability and leverage in order to conclude whether the choice of capital structure supports the pecking order theory or the trade-off theory of capital structure. The findings show that return on assets fluctuates between 3 and 11 percent and that return on equity fluctuates between 3 and 22 percent during the period. Further, the leverage and the cost of debt have decreased. This indicates lowered financial risk in Swedish quoted companies in the period between 1990 and 2004.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a difference between the respondent groups preparers and non-preparers position in IASBs question if a reversal of previously impaired goodwill should be prohibited. The background is an exposure draft sent out by the IASB and we examine the answers, in form of comment letters, sent in by the respondents to reach our purpose. Our method is positivistic in the sense that we study already existing theories when we create our hypothesis which gives our assumption about how the result of the respondent?s answers will be. Our data, which we have collected from the comment letters, is qualitative secondary data.

Studies of modern communication media such as Cell Phones and so called Instant Messengers are popular today. This study focused on these modern techniques, focused on parents as a target group and on what is important for them in everyday communication.By exploratory using three focus groups it became clear that the children, and the link to them was the absolute most important thing for the parents. It became clear that this link to a great extent today exists through the mobile phone.In a following study a Mobile Instant Messenger called My Friends was introduced. It was used by two families during two weeks to see how it would change the communication within the family. The focus was to see how problems with availability were handled, it turned out that:My friends had a more obvious way of indicating availability than the Cell Phone had.

AbstractTitle: See each other on the Internet or on a café? A survey about social consequences of Internet usage. (Umgås på Internet eller på ett café? ? en studie om Internetanvändningens sociala konsekvenser.)Number of pages: 34 (including enclosures).Author: Carolin Johansson.Tutor: Else Nygren.Course: Media and Communication Studies C.Period: Fall 2007.University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about the social consequences that may come up when young people at the age of 16-20 are using the Internet.Material/Method: The material consists of a questionnaire that I made with questions about Internet usage that 84 young people from five classes (from three different upper secondary schools) answered.Main results: To have access to a computer and Internet and the fact that broadband is more inexpensive now than before leads to an increased usage of the Internet. I found out that chatting, music/movies, searching for information and using the Internet for entertainment is what most of the participants spent the most time on while using the Internet.

On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport.

Today?s political debate on environmental issues and environmental thinking, alongside the Swedish presidency of the EU and Climate Conferences shows that the environment is an important topic. Environment is important, not only in politics, but also for companies and the demand of environmental strategies and environmental reports has increased. This leads to an increased pressure on firms to begin to report on environmental concerns and to create active systems for environmental thinking.The aim of the present study is to examine why firms in the transport sector, mainly lorry transports, reports environmental aspects and what drives these companies to create these reports.Based on stakeholder and institutional theory we aim to examine to which extent stakeholders affects the environmental accounting and reporting. We also aim to explain how the organization is influenced to incorporate external and societal environmental procedures.

This thesis treats the topic of user-generated comments connected with news stories on news sites, meaning electronic word-of-mouth combined with PR. The writers have examined how different types of comments affect consumers' perception of the article and also what communication effects these comments generate in terms of attitudes, purchase intent and word-of-mouth intent. The results interesting to the news site owners, is that lots of comments and negative comments generate a negative effect by making the actual article less credible, attractive and worth reading (relative to the subsequent comments). On the positive side, serious comments imply that the news story is perceived as more interesting, than a news story followed by non-serious comments. From a brand equity perspective, the interesting results show that few comments compared to lots of comments, generate a better attitude to the brand, even though there is no difference in how positive or negative the comments are.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to study the expectations towards the launch of an intranet in a large organisation.Material/Method: A qualitative method has been used to fulfil the purpose of this essay. Indepth interviews have been made with eight informants of dioceses.Main Results: The study shows that the eight informants of dioceses all are positive towards the launch of an intranet in the organisation. They believe that it in time will lead to a more effective intern communication with less channels and more efficient messages..

The purpose of this study was to do a narrative survey of the discussion about violence in partner relationships that is held in research literature. The question at issue was: How do research literature discuss violence in partner relationships, with focus on heterosexual relationships? The eight primary documents that have been chosen are written by researchers, professional therapists, National Counsil for Women's protection (Nationellt Råd för Kvinnofrid, NRK) and Swedish Government Official Report (Statens Offentliga Utredningar, SOU). To investigate the theories, discover the similarities and differences between them and how they can complement each other, the documents statements has been analyzed with a dialectic-hermeneutic approach and social constructionism and discourse theory.The research findings showed that the gender perspective theory, the psychodynamic theory and the social psychology theory have a few things in common, but that they on the whole are different and contradict each other. The gender perspective theory dominates the discussion but needs to be combined with the other theories to give a more all-embracing understanding.

The aim of this study was to evaluate parents and course leaders'perceptions of ComHome, a course in communication for parents. Thecourse aims to change the interaction between the parent and the child in aselected play activity based on a defined goal and agreed methodology. Thedata consisted of four group interviews and an individual interview with atotal of 12 parents and course leaders. The interviews were transcribed andcontent analyzed. The study showed that parents and course leadersconsidered goal attainment scaling as a rewarding approach.