This is a tale about energy and power. It describes the geographer Halford Mackinder?s geopolitical theories and compares them with current views outlined by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael T Klare, among others. With a critical approach it also provides a historical account of a Europe that stands in front of an energy struggle so severe that the current world order seems destined to fall. Oil and natural gas, has since the beginning of the 20th century, been used as a geopolitical tool in order to create dependence, control and even sometimes overthrow empires.

This essay is a time-geographic study of workinglife mobilities and investigates two days of work for five respondents. One from home and the other from the persons workingplace. Qualitative and quantitative methods has been applied to illustrate and analyze the two days along with time-geographic constraints. The findings are concluded into themes which represent the two local pockets of order: Home and Workplace. Themes of home are: Comfort station, Household, Curtained-off, Tele-contact and Environment.

There are many different ways to control an organisation. In cultural organisations, it has become more common to have several directors working simultaneously. Often, different individuals possess different cultural and economic experience, thus a variety of backgrounds provides a more thorough scope of expertise and knowledge. This type of management is prevalent in the cultural sector.This thesis will research how leaders in cultural institutes work in a dual leadership, ?co-leadership?, when their backgrounds are different.

The general purpose of this dissertation is to study picture communication in picture books and it addresses the following questions:What is the illustrator?s role in the process of making a picture book? What communicative qualities do pictures have in picture books and how do pictures interact with texts? What methods do illustrators use to visualize the meaning of stories in picture books?A genre analysis, a literature study and an interview of a professional illustrator has been conducted to answer the questions. I found that all objects that make up pictures, the arrangement, colours and shapes contribute to the meaning in diverse ways. Pictures also communicate in a different way than texts. An important difference between pictures and texts in the context of picture books is that pictures are more open for interpretation.

The aim of this study has been to achieve an increased understanding of the meaning of home for people in homelessness. The study is based on texts written by people in homelessness and a qualitative content analysis has been used to process the material. The result has been analysed with an inductive approach, using parts of the analysis method grounded theory. Three aspects of the meaning of home was identified in the texts; control, self-determination and independence. The lack of a home means a major limitation concerning these aspects, according to the texts.

The theory of ?security communities? is generally understood as ?dependable expectations of peaceful change? between groups and whether or not the African Union can be said to meet that criteria has been contested in the research community. One of the central disagreements lie in the nature of the region?s conflicts, of which a majority are intrastate but with tendencies of transnational involvement. This paper seeks to understand how extensive this involvement is and how it affects the possibility of classifying the African Union as a security community.

This bachelor thesis examines the library as a public sphere in the notion of Jürgen Habermas? theory from 1962. The questions asked concerns how the public sphere is discussed in relation to Swedish public libraries today in our late modern society. The analyzed material consists of the Swedish Cultural Bill of 2009 and five qualitative interviews with librarians. The material is analyzed with two of the four social actions presented by the sociologist Maw Weber: value-rational and instrumental.

A global world and international business induces not only opportunities for organizations such as increased possibilities to reach new markets but also challenges to maintain a coherent business. To meet these challenges, organizations need to harbor a global workforce where employees are sent abroad. These employees are called expatriates and receive very lucrative compensation packages to cover their increased expenses. Compensation packages are not only expensive but represent in their totality also a complex strategic challenge for both the organization and the expatriate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which components of a compensation package that are important for different segments of expatriates.

Detta arbete avslutar magisterutbildningen inom Industriell design vid Luleåtekniska universitet. Arbetet har utförts på uppdrag av Agency-9, utvecklareav Javabaserade 3D-motorer. De har tekniken för att producera dataspel avtoppklass men ingen grafisk formgivning och produktion, och är i stort behovav att få igång detta. För att visa upp funktionaliteten i deras 3D-motorAgent FX vill de även ta fram ett demo. Metoderna som använts under arbetet baseras på teorierna om systematiskproblembehandling som lärs ut vid Institutionen för arbetsvetenskap, LTU.

This study explores the notion of class and social inequality as expressed in the Swedish election campaign of 2006 and in the reception of the Swedish conservative party as a "worker's party". Inspired by Fairclough's critical discourse analysis I have carried through an investigation of the debate. My sources consists in a collection of articles, mainly leader columns and contributions to the debate, from a selected number of Swedish newspapers.I found that an explicit discussion about class, or use of the concept as such, was largely absent. In cases where the concept occurred it was often used in a purely descriptive sense or dismissed as outdated. Furthermore, I have drawn the conclusion that the traditional understanding of class is being challenged by a discourse which aims at establishing a new understanding of social inequality as lack of paid work.I take my point of departure in the belief that class continues to be one of the most important bases of social inequality.

This is a discourse analysis concerning the visions for Malmö's future. Three concepts are studied to see which meaning these are given in the Malmö context. The studied concepts are ? development (utveckling), industry (näringsliv) and citizen (befolkning).The meanings of these concepts are studied against a backdrop of theories of inclusion/exclusion in general and inclusion/exclusion in the city more specific. Michael Foucault´s notion of a discourse which stigmatizes those not following a behaviour which is defined as being right and normal is central to this.

From an investigation by Finansinspektionen and KTH (2009) it is apparent that financial advisors and their clients develop relations, believing that they understand each other, while in fact, they do not. The media tends to notice the conflict of interests between advisors and retirement annuity clients. The aim of this study is to create a greater understanding as to why misunderstandings occur between advisors and clients. This will be accomplished by a quality study of how advisors and trade unions assess how the relationship functions. The theoretical part consists of theories concerning relations and uncertainty.

In this paper respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was examined in relation to two kinds of threatening pictures, biological and nonbiological. Based on the results of prior research the hypothesis was claimed to note a difference between the two types of pictures regarding RSA and gender differences regarding cardiac activity due to the emotional stimulus. ECG and respiration were collected from 36 adults, 17 women and 19 men. There were no significant relationship between the different types of threatening pictorial stimuli, and no significant effects of gender were found. The results support some of the prior research on the topic but are in conflict with other.

The aim of this study was to examine young adult cannabis users? attitudes towards cannabis and their perception of the normalization of cannabis. The purpose was also to explore how their views of cannabis correspond with norms regarding cannabis. This study is based on interviews with five young adult cannabis users. The theoretical framework is based on Parker?s normalization thesis, Goffman?s notion of stigma, Becker?s definition of outsiders and the definition of social identity developed by Stone.

This essay is an examination of the examples in Kant?s Critique of Judgement. The examples which I have focused on all converge in an idea of wildness. These examples of the beautiful are illuminated by a culture-historical perspective, where the literary and scientific travelogue genre is of great importance. Apart from being exegetic and culture historical, my method is also analytic.