The Chinese government´s aim to be self-sufficient in food production in combination with the increased food consumption in China has put high pressure on the productivity within the Chinese agricultural sector (He j et al, 2010). In order to increase the productivity, modernization and adoption of new farming techniques are essential. The opportunity to adopt and import foreign technology has lately been possible in China, as more authority and decision rights have been given to the individual farmers and the country has opened up for foreign trade (Zheng, 2012 & Fan, 1991). A more open Chinese market enables new opportunities for foreign agricultural companies to expand their businesses by introducing their products to Chinese farmers. But to succeed with this strategy the Chinese farmers must be willing to adopt these, for them new innovations. Minimum tillage is a tillage practice used worldwide that is suitable in northern China where drought and erosion are the main problems in the crop production (pers.com., Arvidsson, 2012). Potential users? opinion of new innovations such as minimum tillage is closely related to adoption (Rogers, 2003).

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to describe how Swedish public libraries use Web 2.0-tools and their experiences of using the tools. Focus of the study lies in the contact between public libraries and their patrons on the Web 2.0-tools. For the purposes of the study, the use of weblogs and MySpace were chosen for examination. The methodology used for this study was qualitative interviews.

The aim of this thesis is to study social tagging in an OPAC by looking at the tags of Ann Arbor District Library?s catalogue. In this thesis I analyse the possibilities of social tagging. The main questions to be answered are what is the distribution of tags in different categories, what are the differences between fiction and non-fiction and how do the social tags differ from the terms of the professional indexing practice. Studying 500 tags I find that subject matter was the most frequent category for tags assigned to fiction and non-fiction.

Bachelor essay in political science by Andreas Byfeldt, autumn 2007?The practice of deliberative democracy- limitations or enhancements of representative democracy??Supervisor: Erik AmnåThe purpose of this study is to find out what impact the practice of deliberative democracy might have on a representative democracy. What effects deliberative democracy could have in this context are scientifically as well as publically relevant seeing that participation in representative democracies as well as the forms of representation is altering.The essay contains both a theoretical segment and a case study. The information regarding the case is based on the results from a questioner, conversations by and observations from the author. In addition an analysis is performed in the case study.The conclusion of the essay is that there is too little empirical research on the subject of deliberative democracy to make a qualified conclusion about what effects the practice of deliberative democracy could have on a representative democracy.

In this paper we describe the issues of credibility in web applications and internet communities. We bring up examples of how other designers have solved credibility-problems. Further we discuss the features we have created for our community, Stickling, to make any visitor to perceive it as credible..

In this paper we describe the issues of credibility in web applications and internet communities. We bring up examples of how other designers have solved credibility-problems. Further we discuss the features we have created for our community, Stickling, to make any visitor to perceive it as credible..

Den här uppsatsen undersöker de stilistiska uttryck som går att återfinna på Gina Tricots och Acne Studios Facebook-sidor. Studien utgår från teorier om eWOM, marketing management och consumer communities för att skapa en förståelse för hur och varför konsumenter och varumärken uttrycker sig som de gör på varumärkenas Facebook-sidor.Studien har genomförts med en netnografisk datainsamling av de båda varumärkenas Facebook-sidor under en tremånadersperiod, och analyserats med hjälp av en stilistisk textanalys. De huvudsakliga analyspunkterna har varit funktion, drivkraft, syfte, disposition och stilmarkörer, och studien har analyserat både varumärkes- och konsumentinlägg.Genom metoden har denna studie kommit fram till att det finns tydliga skillnader i hur de båda varumärkena använder sina respektive Facebook-sidor. Ett varumärke som Acne Studios använder sin Facebook-sida som ett medium för att dela nya plagg och kollektioner, medan Gina Tricot istället använder detta medium för att skapa interaktion med sina konsumenter och få återkoppling om vad som kan anses vackert eller gräsligt. Dessa skillnader kan ha sitt ursprung i den positionering som varumärkena valt på marknaden, och studien återkopplar till dessa och försöker med hjälp av teorin förklara varför det inte finns en korrekt användning av Facebook.

[?If we zigzag in the middle, it?s OK?] The purpose of the following study is to examine the relationship between tourism and religion in a Balinese context. We look specifically at changes in religious practice, culture and mentality, as well as how religious philosophy is used as a tool for limiting the negative impact of tourism. The methods used are semi-structured interviews and participant observations. Central themes in the following essay are globalization in the form of tourism, westernization, subsystem theory and capitalism, which also make up the theoretical framework.

Title: Theory and Practice: A study of Swedish Research on the Internationalization in Swedish Business and its Relevance to Practice´s, according to The Camber of Commers, Swedish Trade Council and researchers.Main issue: Within marketing science, there is an general ongoing discussion about the gap between researchers and practitioners, this leads to the thesis main issue on whether the Swedish marketing research conducted in the internationalization of Swedish companies, is relevant to practitioners and provides essential tools for practitioners to applicable in real business situations.Purpose: The purpose is to answer the problems of theory and practice, what it looks like and what the underlying factors and impact difference between internationalization theory and practice are.Method: The thesis has a qualitative methodology mainly based on theory, as well as empirical findings from researchers and organizations working with Swedish company's internationalization.Results: The result shows that there is a difference between theory and practice and that there are several factors underpinning this. Theories primary purpose is not to be practical but to explore an unanswered need to create an understanding to the researcher?s audience, which is other researchers, thereby are theories based on knowledge not demands from the practitioners. The result also shows that the internationalization theories can be applied in practice´s reality on the internationalization of companies. Research degree of generality has a sense of reality given by the empirical studies which therefore reflects the reality of the theory which gives theory a content of truth.Conclusion: The gap that exists between theory and practice has both positive and negative effects.

The popularity of video games has been boosted by the rise of user-generated live streaming platforms, and the biggest of them all is Twitch. The popularity depends on Twitch alignment of live streamed video games. The stream is created by a player who broadcast and streams the video game online. The video game can then be watched by a viewer that is interested in the video game. In every stream there is an implemented live chat that allows the viewer to interact with the streamer while the stream is online.

AbstractTitle: The New Type of Music Industry at AllEars.se (Den nya musikbranschen på AllEars.se)Number of pages: 49 (53 including enclosures)Author: Viktor BackemarTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media och Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare AllEars´ own view of the website AllEars.se to an observed view of the same site. The comparison is based on theories regarding the Internet in today?s society, convergence, communities and collective intelligence, interactivity and participation, and business in today?s society.Method: Since the paper has a purpose to compare two views of the same website there are two main methods in use. AllEars´ own view has been created via an interview with the company?s CEO, a press release that was released in connection with the launch of the website and texts found on the website.

This master?s thesis studies library teaching at two university libraries, Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and Södertörn University in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to study views on information literacy, how these views affect teaching practice, and how the teaching of information literacy is connected to, on the one hand, German and Swedish learning culture and, on the other, the local community of practice at the studied university libraries. The theories applied in this paper are learning culture and community of practice as developed in the works of Judith Ricken and Etienne Wenger. The methods that have been used are qualitative, semi-structured interviews that were conducted at both university libraries.It was observed that the teaching practices were highly connected to learning cultures.

Religious congregations and social work have long been a neglected field of research. Although the number of studies have increased during the last twenty years. With a starting point in the situation in this field of research and in the current public debate in Sweden the focus of this study will be on how Christian and Muslim congregations view cooperating with the municipalities, organizations, the religious community to whom which the congregation belongs and how the congregations view cooperating with other religious communities. Qualitative method of research was used. Representatives of four religious congregations was interviewed; a deacon in a congregation in the Swedish Lutheran Church, a pastor in a congregation belonging to the Mission Covenent Church of Sweden, the chairman in a the board of a Muslim congregation and volunteerleader in another Muslim congregation.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of how belonging and community is created in one of the aesir faith communities in Sweden. The study examines the aesir faith communities ability to develop the community members religious identity as well as their understanding of the importance of cultural heritage and how it affects the members in their practices of their aesir faith. The main argument in this study is that cultural heritage creates a sense of community that makes the members want to stay and develop their religious identity together with the other members of the aesir faith community. I have used cultural heritage, symbols and rituals, belonging, community and religious identity as concepts in order to answer my research questions. The methods used in this study are participant observation during the group's public activities, as well as interviews with the members of the aesir faith community in order to confirm the analysis I made during the participant observation.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton.