The EU-funded project European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) aims to integrateresources from various domains within the field of cultural heritage, and make them availableon the Internet. To accomplish this integration it is necessary to describe the various resourcesin a way that will achieve cross-domain interoperability. This description of digital resourcesis commonly referred to as metadata. The most well known and used metadata standard is theDublin Core Metadata Element Set, a general standard developed for the purpose ofdescribing all types of digital resources. Since the mid-1990's a large number of specializedstandards have emerged in different communities, for example IMDI, designed for detaileddescription of language resources.This thesis aims to examine the possibility of combining a general and a specialized metadatastandard to achieve cross-domain interoperability and at the same time provide a sufficientlydetailed description of language resources for researchers within the field of linguistics.

The aim of the present study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of the contact with the ?fear of childbirth?-team (called Aurora-team) made by women who feared childbirth. Qualitative content analyses according to Graneheim and Lundman was used to analyse 91 womens own written notes made at the end of a questionnaire which (with a quantitative approach) evaluated the counseling made by the Aurora-team at a hospital in the south of Sweden. The following five categories developed during the analyses; experience of the conversation, not knowing creates fear, thoughts regarding mode of delivery, the importance of how the birth plan is managed and the personnel´s standpoint regarding fear of childbirth. These categories can be seen as parts of the themes of experiences which made the fear of childbirth easier or which made it worse.

The world becomes more globalized for each year that passes by due to economical, political and technological processes. The globalization process leads to increased contacts with people from different cultures and therefore intercultural communication occurs.Intercultural and strategic communication is significant to accomplish successful establishments and effective communication for companies. The export from Sweden abroad increases every single year and today there are about 1500 Swedish companies around the world and 350 established in Russia. The purpose of this study has therefore been to analyze the factors that affect the establishments of Swedish companies in Russia.Material to our study has been collected through qualitative interviews and a seminar focusing on these questions. Our interviewees all have experiences on working with Russia, as most of the interviewees work for Swedish companies in Russia or are consults that help companies to succeed with their establishment.The material has been evaluated and analyzed in relation to our main theories in intercultural- and strategic communication using theorists and theories such as Hofstede and his five cultural dimensions, Goffman?s staging and Habermas communicative action theory.Our theories have been put in relation to our collected information and complemented by earlier research and the result indicates that you need intercultural competence to manage an establishment of a Swedish company and the strategic communication in Russia because of the intercultural differences that the respondents experience..

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of leadership and gender issues circulat- ing in Womentor leadership development programme, and to have a discussion around what conse- quences they may have on participants' careers. To answer the question I have used a qualitative approach in the form of 10 interviews and non-participant observations. The theories in this study are based on gender and leadership issues.The problem which forms the basis of this study is the underrepresentation of women at senior posi- tions. A basic assumption in this study is that notions of gender and leadership affect the individual's ability to act. The circulating concepts identified in Womentor are: The leader who wants to be a manager, The leader who gets things done, The communicative leader, Change leader, The motiva- tional leader and The leader as a role model.

In the last decade the Italian authorities have tried to adapt themselves to a united European asylum system, in the European Union, through the adoption of legal reforms, intended to improve the conditions of asylum seekers in Italy. Despite these reforms, asylum seekers and refugee?s living conditions are far from covered. The aim of this study is to explore the different functions of social work in the Italian reception process regarding unaccompanied minors and their implications on the wellbeing of the unaccompanied minors. This study was conducted through several interviews with both social workers, which in some way worked with unaccompanied minors, and the unaccompanied minors themselves.

Title: ?When The Line Between Transmitter and Receiver Blurs? ? A Study of how organizations look at social media as part of their external communication and how they respond to the environment in the new media toolNumber of pages: 49 (51 including enclosures)Author: Ida Hansson KällTutor: Cecilia StrandCourse: Media and Communication Studies D 30hpPeriod: Spring 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Informatics and Media,Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to study how five organizations look at social media as part of their external communication and how they respond to the environment in the new media tool.Material/Method: A qualitative method has been used. Five interviews as primary sources have been conducted with representatives from each organization.Main results: The main results of the study is that organizations have to integrate social media as part of their external communication plans in order to face and respond to their surroundings in a new interaction and multi-way communicative platform. Results also show that organizations are well aware of the importance of making use and participate in social media.Keywords: blogs, external communication, facebook, respond to the environment, social media.

Social exclusion is a problem in today?s society that we feel public libraries can help resolve since they are based on the idea of equality and openness. The purpose of this essay is to examine how public librarians think and reason about the concept ?integration? as well as what role public libraries can play in immigrants? integration process. With Jose Alberto Diaz? theory on the integration process, and Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model for analysis of the local library profile as theoretical framework, we analyzed the responses from two qualitative interviews in small groups of 2-3 librarians from two different public libraries.

Internal communication is very important for the success of an organization. The county council Landstinget i Värmland is a large organization with many managers on different positions. Every one of these managers gets an email every week, with the message that a new manager letter, called Chef, is published on the intranet. With my paper I am examining what the managers think of this letter, how they use it and if managers on different positions differ from each other in opinions about and use of the letter. I want to find out if there is a need of Chef as a part of the internal communication of Landstinget i Värmland.To answer these questions, I have chosen a quantitative method in the form of a questionnaire which is send to all the receivers of the manager letter.

This report describes a study of how educationalists, from one preschool group, approach to and respond to children ?s creative activity in preschool. To answer the survey ?s purpose I used four research questions, which is the following:-What function do the educationalists give the creative activity in the working?-How do they see the importance of thecreative activity for thechild and its development?-How doeducationalists considerthat theyrespond to the child's creative activity?-Is thereany norms surrounding creative activity in preschool?The theoretical base of the study is rooted in the sociocultural perspective, where creative activity and visual arts can be seen as mediating cultural tools. The method is a qualitative interview of five preschooleducationalists.

The purpose of this study is to explore specific pedagogical activities that benefit the student's verbal language development and to learn more about how our schools use teaching methods to achieve the ambitions in the governing documents in Sweden. The aim is finding the correlation between theory, research, governing documents and the educational work in our schools. This study contains an empirical survey in intention to see how teachers, pupils and school administrators experience school activities, to see if those activities are formed with the intention for pupils to reach the learning goals according to the governing documents.The aim of this study has been achieved by relating empirical data with theories and previous research on conversation analysis. Goffman's and Norrby's research on the importance of dialogue and previous research on dialogicity studied by Dysthe, Vygotsky and Bakhtin are presented. Those are related to empirical data and show that most teachers realize the importance of integrating dialogues in daily activities and in different learning contexts.

?Studies have shown that patients receiving mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit (ICU), who are entirely dependent on the nursing staff, often experience frustration due to a temporary loss of the voice source. Limited communication is an important factor contributing to patient discomfort. Nursing staff also report communication as frustrating and difficult.The aim of the present study is to introduce a neck-type electrolarynx as a communication aid in an ICU, to study the nursing staff experiences of communication with tracheotomized patients receiving mechanical ventilation, and to examine the patient´s experiences regarding communicative abilities. Communication between a ventilator treated, tracheotomized patient and members of the nursing staff was recorded and analyzed according to principles of Conversation Analysis (CA).The results show that several members of the nursing staff experience difficulties communicating with tracheotomized patients receiving mechanical ventilation.

The present study deals with task-oriented conversations between a person with hearing loss and a relative or friend. The purpose was to investigate how the participants in the task-oriented context co-construct understanding, and to focus on different kind of repair strategies that the participants may use to make the hearing loss relevant in the conversation. The method used was Conversation Analysis (CA). The material consisted of eight videotaped task-oriented conversations between a person with hearing loss and their significant other. Altogether eight persons participated in the study ? four of them had a hearing loss and the other four had normal hearing.

Our curiosity was awakened when we became aware that many social workers use "mindfulness" methods in their profession. In this study, we used qualitative methodology in our desire to examine and understand why the mindfulness approach, with its roots in eastern philosophy, is becoming established in society at large and, simultaneously, being used in the social work field. We were interested in when and why social workers choose to use mindfulness with their clients. Our prior research has revolved around development and use of methods in social work, and on the human reaction to stress.We conducted seven semi-structured interviews, which incorporated four comprehensive questions:1. Why has the mindfulness method become established in the social work field and in the culture in general?2.

This thesis addresses the subject of internal communication between the leadership and the employees. Communication is a common process and according to Tufvesson (2008), the primary focus has been on the role and responsibility of the leadership. This can mean that, from the employee's point of view, it is not clear what the organization expects, and this lack of clarity dimishes the ability of the employees to live up to those expectations (ibid). Tufvesson (2008) believes that today's organizations need common interpretations, which requires a well thought out communication strategy between leadership and employees. Because communication represents an organization's functionality, the report?s authors were interested in studying the employees? representatives.

The subject of my thesis is what I have chosen to call the ?action babe cinema? of the 21st century, essentially action-movies featuring a female heroine in the lead role. Inspired by the theories of Vladímir Propp, author of Morphology of the Folktale, I have tried to reveal the underlying structure of these films. I have chosen eleven films which form my material, and from these extracted a number of functions (which means the actions of a character), that reoccur frequently. The heroines? transformation can be seen as a central theme of the action babe cinema, and I have divided the films into two groups depending on the course of the transformation, either from soft to hard or the other way around.