During the spring semester of 2009 I have participated in what was to become the project The Allotment Plot; a collaboration between the Swedish University of Agriculture and the Wanås Foundation. As one of six students in landscape architecture I have experienced a group based learning process with the point of departure in the designing of an organic and experimental kitchen garden at Wanås, a sculpture park for Contemporary art. The project came out as neither us nor any other of the people engaged could have guessed. What was meant to be a garden turned out to become an entire cultivation movement. As students, we have gained a lot of experience through praxis; experience that will be valuable for our future profession. The project has also opened up the possibility to question and reflect upon what our profession and education could or should be about. This thesis focuses on the role of communication and the production of communicative tools in design processes and landscape architectural practice. It discusses how communication may be used in an exploratory and ?un-securing? way, and how this may dislocate the professional role, especially in situations where the design action, as in the case of this study, demands a high degree of transdisciplinarity and collaboration. .

This essay seeks to analyze the consequences of modern information and communication technology for collective action within the framework of social movements. With references to the protests in Seattle 1999, the essay argues that the emergence of distributed collective action is closely related to the use of technology, for example cell phones and Internet. This distributed collective action can be characterized by its decentralized and self-organizing features, forming a global pattern emerging from local interactions. Whereas Contemporary theories of collective action can be ´stretched´ to fit these aspects, they lack analytical tools to describe and analyze such systems. Further, their rejection of classical crowd theory is problematic, since it contains valuable insights.

The mental health has during the recent years decreased among Swedish adolescents while theinternet has become a common tool for communication between people. Aim: The overall aim is toidentify the relationship between internet use among adolescents and their mental health. Method:A literature based study within a defined research field. Result: The scientific hypotheses whichexist is based on whether social capital increase or decrease due to internet use. The healthoutcome is positively affected by internet communication, especially for boys and socially anxiousadolescents.

During an excavation at Old Uppsala 571 raw garnets was found. In comparison with similar fragments from other sites in Sweden my aim was to prove a completely domestic production of garnets for cloisonné work. I have chosen to look at the archaeological sites of Old Uppsala, Valsta, Slöinge and Paviken and more closely at the material from Old Uppsala and Valsta. My theoretical framework has been to look at the garnets own agency in the Contemporary society.Garnet cloisonné was a popular jewellery form during the Merovingian period on the continent although it came to an end in the early 7th century. It was during this time in Scandinavia a new sort of garnet, technique and paste was introduced and the garnet cloisonné was profoundly used for the gear of the elite and ritual objects.

This study has the purpose to reveal whether gender stereotypes are manifested or challenged in the children comic Bamse - världens starkaste björn based on six different stories widespread over 40 years. The results will be studied in the light of the Contemporary gender development in society and emanate from theories about power, discourse, representation, queer and gender. An eclectic analysis based on semiotics and critical discourse analysis will be the method to reveal the underlying gender perspective in Bamse. The conclusion of the study shows an ambiguous perspective in the comic where both men and women occasionally are represented in a manifested as well as a challenged stereotypical role. In some of the stories the gender is erased and all characters are represented based on their individual attributes instead, meanwhile in some stories men are represented as active heroes while women are portrayed as passive nurturer.

Contemporary libraries face challenges in transforming their organization to meet the digitalized society. To develop the process of digitization of literature is a natural way for libraries to go when they already have more visitors online than physically. Since the demand for digital material is so sought after, we feel challenged to address the challenges of the Internet as an emerging functional medium for distributing knowledge. These developments will be able to significantly modify the nature of literature as well as the existing system of quality assurance. In this study, we explored and analyzed a digitization project at a research library.

The subject of religion in Swedish schools is the single most talked about topic in the curriculum. One explanation could be that it is the oldest subject in Swedish schools and the topic has undergone the biggest change through time. This process of change has been anything but undebated. The subject of religion within schools has met debates through almost its entire history, partly from the state and from the church, but also from the teachers and the students. Debates concerning the existence of Christianity in Swedish schools as well as the Swedish traditions constantly reoccur in today?s government debates and various media but in different versions.

Green roofs have seen a revival in the society of today. They provide many functions of which both society as a whole and the individual can take part. In particular extensive green roofs, that requires little or even zero maintenance, provides very valuable functions. Green roofs affect our environment and our economy in a positive manner as well as the physical expression of buildings. In this bachelor thesis the impact of green roofs on society has been examined throughout literature studies. The result as a compilation of Contemporary research in this field is presented together with a discussion about the use of green roofs in general. The two major arguments for an extended use of green roofs are, the high stormwater retention capacity and the cost-benefits seen over time compared to a conventional roof.

CSR is a far reaching concept and practice, whose popularity and diffusion has increased rapidly in recent years. Research indicates that CSR has made an evolutionary journey from primarily being characterized by reactiveness to develop into a risk minimizing and proactive competitive advantage and should be looked upon as an answer to heightened societal pressure and awareness. Based on a review regarding different relevant theoretical perspectives, this master thesis discusses CSR as a concept and practical matter in relation to various strategically chosen representatives of a selection of professions.Moreover, the data were collected through in-depth semi structured interviews. The findings show that CSR is a Contemporary and highly context dependent phenomenon whose inherent multiplicity brings a distinct aspect of uncertainty to it, in terms of both meaning and practice. And in some parts there is a reluctance to communicate CSR due to a fear of missing out of important aspects.

Genom att spela in Lars Janssons låtar samt en av mina egna, utforskar jag pianots roll i dessa olika sorters ECM-jazz kompositioner. Jansson låtar är oftast skrivna för en triokonstellation (piano, bas och trummor). I triokonstellation är det viktigt för pianisten att upprätthålla harmonik, rytmik och tema. Kompositionerna har oftast starka teman och pianot en ledande roll. Med min egen komposition ska jag försöka efterlikna Janssons kompositioner, samt undersöka ECMjazzens karaktäristiska kännetecken.

Using stimuli with identical information in both PR and advertising, this study seeks to explain how content class together with the level of involvement affects the communication effects of marketing messages. There is currently no established way of measuring the value of PR, and Contemporary PR metrics do not take into account what effects PR actually generates. PR is often said to have an advantage over advertising due to the effects of third party endorsement, but previous empirical assessments show inconsistent results regarding what effects each content class generates. The result of this study is that PR is stronger at building recall, interest and credibility, and that it has less perceived selling intent than advertising. Results differ somewhat between different levels of involvement, but the conclusion is that this might not be attributable to the level of involvement per se but rather to the type of products being used in stimuli - a conclusion that seems valid for previous research as well.

In this paper I'm trying to trace, analyze and emphasize Kathy Acker?s Great Expectations and Alison Knowles?s The Big Book in regard to the books in/finite im/possibilities. I analyze them through historical changes in the books format and structure, especially ones proposed by Mallarmé, Duchamp and Fluxus. To analyze the texts more closely attention is directed to how Acker and Knowles challenge the conventional narrative, in regard to the body and language/voice and sound. I give specific emphasizes to thoughts posted by écriture féminine, while also adding Mara Lee?s temporalities in regard to body resistance and time.

The controversial phenomenon of ?seeker-oriented? megachurches are currently transforming the American religious landscape. These churches, some housing up to 30,000 worshippers every week, are targeting religious seekers as their primary objective. Their success in attracting and converting those who usually wouldn?t even think of attending church can in large parts be explained by changes in liturgy, the removal of visible theological discussion and use of shopping mall styled buildings, designed to make the religious seeker feel like home.

An industry in distress was the breeding ground for a noted pricing strategy, labeled name-your-price. The industry was the music industry and the pricing strategy bears reminiscence of how medieval buskers earned their living during the dark ages; by letting the customers decide how much the good was worth, embodied by a thrown coin into a hat or similar collector. Translated into the Contemporary corporate environment of today, where technical innovations provides access to the intellectual property for free, a few mighty economic actors have once again turned to the strategy were it all started; letting the customer set the price. The hat has been replaced by a box for your credit card number and the live music by a MP3 file, but the similarity is striking. The business model have been applied in other industries as well with various levels of success, thus the purpose of this thesis is to set up a framework for where the name-your-price strategy is applicable.

In Contemporary Sweden political participation among foreign-born Swedes is viewed as low and it is well known that foreign-born individuals do not use their voting rights to the same extent as the general population. At the same time there are numerous ethnic associations around the country who work with various activities involving political, democratic and integration issues. This study aims to study how four members of a Somali association regard, relate to and work with politics, democracy and integration. The study is based on these four people, but also on their relationship with authorities and other agencies in the community. The conclusion of this study shows in brief that the desire to participate politically is great, but that democracy and politics is accessible to all, depending on the level of language skills and what political knowledge the individual has.