This master thesis deals with the Nobel Prize and highbrow culture as portrayed in Karin Alvtegen?s Skugga. From a sociology of literature perspective, it aims to analyze how these highbrow themes can be understood in relation to Alvtegen?s position in the literary field as a lowbrow crime novelist. The method used is hermeneutic, and the analysis is based on two theoretical models: Pierre Bourdieu?s cultural sociology, and the postmodern tradition where the distinction high/low and its traditional hierarchy is said to be decomposed.

This paper deals with variations in the osteological material of dog (Canis familiaris L.) from the Mesolithic Scania, southern Sweden. The general aim is to discuss the use and specialisation of dog during the period, and differences or relations between cultures and traditions within the Mesolithic period. The study is based on a analysis of the bone material from the sites; Ageröd I:A-D, Ageröd I:H-C, Bredasten, Bökeberg III, Hög, Löddesborg, Ringsjöholm, Segebro, Sjöholmen, Skateholm I-II and Tågerup, phase 1-3, with datings from Late Maglemose Culture to Early Ertebølle Culture. The seminar paper also includes descriptive statistics of the osteometrical data of Denmark, from several studies of Degerbøhl (1927) and Noe-Nygaard (1995, 2003). The study is focused on the relation between size, robusticity, muscle grooves and ligaments of mandibula, tibia, radius, humerus, femur and metacarpalia/metatarsalia.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. The West Coast Nation student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu?s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias? theories on the established and the outsiders.

The aim of this paper was to examine which discourses of women that could be found in Swedish policy documents concerning alcohol from the seventies until today. The questions asked were in which ways women?s drinking was described and how these descriptions could be analyzed and understood by critical discourse analysis and gender theory. The results indicated two main discourses, one replacing the other over time. According to the first discourse, most clearly expressed in the official report from the seventies, women were not consumers of alcohol to the same extent as men.

To be able to handle tomorrows need for limited energy consumption we need to reduce our use of energy. The building sector stands for around 40 % of all energy consumption in the society. The government has put up a goal to reduce the energy consumption in our buildings with 20 % by year 2020 and 50 % by year 2050 compared with year 1995. To be able to do reach that goal we need a more energy efficient building stock.The main part of the energy used in our buildings is used for space heating. By installing ventilation systems with heat recovery on the exhaust air it is possible to use the heat-energy in the exhaust air to warm up the incoming air.

Game fields are one way to divert animals away from sensitive areas, create shelter and forage, and also to increase the biological diversity. In this study I investigated how the plant composition in six different crop mixes used for game fields affected the biomass production, biomass consumption and biological diversity at the Koberg estate in southwestern Sweden. Six experimental fields were used and each field contained six plots, approximately 1500 m2 each, that was sown with a different crop mix. The crop mixes ranged from a pure grass mix (A), 70 % grass and 30 % leguminous plants (B), 53 % grass, 21 % leguminous plants and 26 % other herbs (C), 100 % leguminous plants (D) to the most complex mixes constituting of 91 % leguminous plants and 9 % other herbs (E) and 87 % leguminous plants and 13 % other herbs (F). The fields were cut weekly during the summer in 2010, to estimate weekly biomass production.

By interviewing 10 people in leadership positions from various companies and      countries, this thesis had as main objective to find out how the view the of what environment promotes the intrapreneur to make the organizations more competitive and successful. By transcribing and interpreting the interviews, we have found the keywords that could answer our research question. Our method has been based on a qualitative approach with an inductive direction. The leadership has been shown to have a significant role in terms of company culture and the intrapreneurs ability to contribute to the development of the organizations. The culture is essential.

Because of an increasing demand from customers and changing external environment, there is a need for continuous improvements, for both manufacturing and service organizations, to meet these demands. Manufacturing organizations have been working systematically with quality improvements for a long time, but it has not been as common for service organizations. Because of that the methods to use for implementation of the systematic improvements have not been designed to fit service organizations, and not either for public organizations. The purpose of this thesis is to explain if and why the Swedish Road Administration?s organizational culture and handling of ideas and deviation support an implementation of continuous improvement management.

Our purpose was to investigate which readiness, different sectors in a minor city has to meet honour-related problems. We wanted to investigate how they manage honour-related problems and how the co-operation in these cases is between different authorities. Our questions at issue were: Which knowledge's, experiences there are about the culture of honour, which resources has the authorities and how is the co-operation between different organisations work?We have collected present documentation and research about the subject. We made eight quality interviews with different persons within professions, as we understood, came in contact with cultures of honour.

The aim of this study is to examine the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also: The Arabian Nights) from a european perspective, by comparing different european translations. The study focuses on three translations into Swedish from different periods of time and how the tales have changed in the translation process - depending on the prevailing line of approach and Western perceptions of Eastern standards. The thesis of the study is that Eastern culture, from a Western perspective, has been seen as exotic and different but not as a high literary culture and that this view has affected the translations into european languages. The study shows, among other things, that Western culture is many times considered normative in the translations and that the translators often give their own voices a prominent role, also that common Western notions of the East affects the translations.The word ?orientalism? is used frequently in the study and it refers primarily to the image of the Orient as it is described in Edward Saids' book Orientalism: as a Western construction whose main purpose is to strengthen its own conception of the Orient and thereby strengthen the Western identity as better than the Orient.

The idea of bringing mindfulness into organizations has become increasingly popular. While previous research has shown positive effects of mindfulness practice in individuals, consequences of introducing mindfulness in organizations remain largely unexplored. This thesis examines those consequences through a qualitative study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with members of two case companies. Based on the effects which mindfulness has been shown to have on individuals, our analysis was especially focused on the areas of efficiency, effectiveness and organizational culture.

The Veiled Party: A Discourse Analysis of Sweden Democratic Texts aims to further the understanding of the underlying ideology of the Sweden Democratic party, by revealing whether or not there is any ideological content that include race, racialization, and racism in the party?s political texts. The study offers a background description of the discursive change in the social and political climate of debate in Sweden, which opened a policy window for xenophobic agenda setting. In addition, the study delivers a presentation of the public debate regarding the Sweden Democrats, as well as statements by party representatives.Through a social constructionist and discourse analytic framework, the study aims at understanding how the application of racial ideas are done and mapped. The core of the theoretical framework is a critical race and whiteness theoretical approach.

This paper aims to examine how and to what extent, a transition of Sweden according to the principles of Omställning Sverige (Transition towns Sweden), have the potential to contribute to a society with increased happiness.The paper is based on a qualitative textual analysis of the key texts in the Swedish Transition towns movement, Omställning Sverige. In the first part of the study the most important transition principles of Omställning Sverige were identified. Four key principles emerged: An altered view of economics, a spiritual change, a stronger local community and increased awareness. These transition principles were then analyzed through the lens of the scientific fields position on happiness, followed by a summarizing conclusion.The altered view of economics which Omställning Sverige advocates, where sustainability and quality of life are priorities over economic growth, is even necessary to secure our basic physiological needs. Such an economy has also improved conditions for economic stability, high employment and higher efficiency in the sense of happiness promoted in relationship to how many natural resources are used.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the arrival of class society is expressed in the social dance of high society during the second half of the eighteenth century. The study is based on the idea that culture and society develope in interaction; that changes in the economic, political and social life determine the cultural expressions as well. What I wish to examine is whether cultural themes from the developing bourgeois culture ? individualism, to be precise ? is expressed in the social dance during the second half of the eigthteenth century. // The study shows that public balls definitely gave people a chance to show off on the dance floor in spite of social rank.

Music today is a big part of a person's everyday life and can influence emotions as wellas initiative and motivation. This effect together with development in technology hasled to that music today is accessible and can be played from a large amount of differentkinds of products. This in turn has meant that the demand for smaller audio playbackdevices is greater than ever.The goal of this project is to develop a concept for energy-efficient speakers withwireless communication that has the ability to obtain and play high quality music. Thespeakers will use the latest available technology and at the same time, using digitalsignal processing, have a low environmental impact through high energy efficiencyand low power consumption. Parallel to this work a pilot study will be conducted tosee trends in listener preference of sound.The result achieves the goals pledged while power consumption in sleep mode is solow that they meet the demands of tomorrow.