The aim of this study is to examine the religious landscape of Brazil, and based on the theory of secularization by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart to explain why Brazilians are religious and not secular. The study is a secondary analysis that uses existing statistics to examine different units of analysis of Brazil?s religious landscape, economics and equality, etc. Based on their theory I find that Brazil is still religious due to the lack of security in the country. Brazil is insecure in terms of measures of socioeconomic equality, stable politics without corruption, and physical safety of the citizens in Brazil.

This case-study examines the correlation between young men and democratic instability in group discussions with two analyzing methods in one. One part of the method used is deliberative democracy which aims to explain how democracy works within the frames of discussion in ordinary citizens groups. In this study the citizens is upper level secondary school students. The other part of the method used is the theory pulled by many scholars lately, the demographic impact on democracy. With these two combined in one this study compare the theory of young men as more active in political violence and as a destabilising factor of democracy on country-level with the results of the study in deliberative democracy in small group discussions.

This Bachelor?s thesis is about bossless organizations. We have observed that the hierarchical structure that the majority of organizations is structured by today is a remnant of a time long gone, and can be an obstacle for independent thinking and responsibility inside organizations. We want to question the accepted perception that an organization is best structured in a hierarchic form.The purpose of the thesis is to provide an understanding of how a bossless organization works and to give a concrete explanation of the consequences of this kind of organizational structure.The thesis is of a qualitative nature and is designed with an inductive approach at an organizational level. We conducted a case study on a bossless company and supplemented this with secondary sources from three other bossless organizations.It concludes that the bossless approach can work and that there are a number of advantages to benefit from it.

This paper is about the new programming language from Microsoft, C# (See Sharp) and the .NET Framework. They are still in beta-version, but will be released on the market in February 2002. This paper presents C#, not in detail but the characteristics that distinguish the language. A comparison is done with C++ and Java, since C# is most resembling to these languages. Both C# and Java have been developed from the mother- language C++.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate different methods for identifying states in robot models. Both linear and non-linear filters exist among these methods and are compared to each other. Advantages, disadvantages and problems that can occur during tuning and running are presented. Additional measurements from accelerometers are added and their use with above mentioned methods for state estimation is evaluated. The evaluation of methods in this report is mainly based on simulations in Matlab, even though some experiments have been performed on laboratory equipment.The conclusion indicates that simple non-linear models with few states can be more accurately estimated with a Kalman filter than with an extended Kalman filter, as long as only linear measurements are used.

To this day, battery of women is a global problem. The aim of this paper is to examine this problem in the country that is considered to be one of the most equal countries in the world, namely Sweden. How big a problem is it, what is the social outlook of the victim and how does the Swedish justice system respond to this issue? These are some of the questions that will help to form an answer to the question if Sweden is a sanctuary for femalebatterers.Due to the resistance of implementing the entire penalty scale and the use of judicial methods, such as restraining orders and its effect on the women, the conclusion drawn from the answers is yes - Sweden is that sanctuary. The Swedish justice system is not tough enough when it comes to the abuse of women.

This study aims to provide a picture of how fathers and mothers are produced in judgments regarding child custody and to investigate if any of the parties is aggrieved because of their gender. The material consists of six legal cases. The study is based on gender theory and social construction. It represents a qualitative method where we have used text analysis. The previous research is contradictory as on one hand it shows that there are different criteria related to the parents' gender when it comes to caring for children in both child welfare investigations and the courts.

The members of the OECD have agreed on giving aid assistance to developingcountries in a way of promoting their own capacity of handling the challengeof poverty and development. The members also cooperate and coordinate theiraid to recipient countries in the purpose of giving as effective assistance aspossible. The aid from these countries is often intended to human rights,democracy and has a humanitarian idea. This is the way from the OECDcountries. The Chinese way of giving aid mostly aimed at the industry of therecipient to promote the economic growth to lift the country out of poverty.The Chinese way do not aim or intend their aid at promoting human rights ordemocracy, often just industry and infrastructure.

Ever since the development of the pc and their software, in the early 80´s,architects way of work have changed a lot. Nowadays most of the architectspresent all their works digitally and not with hand drawn material, as they didbefore the pc boom.Digital visualisation technique pushes the limits, when it is about presentingarchitecture projects virtual reality.This report studies how digital visualization technique is used among thearchitects today.Together with architects from ABAKO architect firm in Gothenburg, Sweden,interviews has been made to give answers about what they think about digitalvisualization technique. What are the opportunities, advantages- anddisadvantage with this digital technique?The answers from the architects, together with work that has been done withdigital visualization technique in a project called Project Sofiedal, shows thatthis technique has big opportunities when it comes to create nice looking VRpresentations. The result in this report also shows that this digital technique ismore time demanding compared to hand drawn presentations.The investigation shows that digital visualization technique is a goodcompliment when it is about showing the citizens how future projects willaffect the surrounding.

In order to become even more competitive, a partnering with other niche players is essential in achieving a competitive advantage and it enables opportunities for reintermediation. From an intermediate perspective, there are great possibilities for those who become content coordinators to enter the market. By becoming a bundler of services and products, the content coordinators will become the actors that will capture the most profit in the value web. The value creating drivers that have been identified in the business landscape of intermediates concern owning the content or owning the customer relationship. We find the possibilities of an intermediate actor, such as a content coordinator to achieve competitive advantage through strategic fit is subject to the context and the ability of creating more innovative and co-creative distribution systems.

There are over 1,5 billion Muslims living on earth and the religion is one of the world´s most increasing. Sweden is a country with a cultural diversity where about 300 000 Muslims lived in 1999. Today, the requirement for knowledge about caring for Muslims and the need of culturally competent nursing care are increasing.The aim of this study was to define cultural factors which the nurse has to recognize to be able to give culturally competent care to the Muslim patient. The method that has been used was a The Sunrise Model, which illustrates Leininger´s theory of culture care diversity and universality, provides a theoretical framework for the study. The results are presented on the basis of Leininger´s three cultural factors; cultural values, beliefs and lifeways.

Instrumental conditioning, the use of reinforcement and punishment, is used when training horses and these procedures may have different consequences regarding animal welfare. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of reinforcers that are used in training horses and when these reinforcers are used. This study has its focus on positive reinforcement and its advantages and disadvantages. Interviews of five A-level and B -level equestrian coaches about their training methods were conducted to complement the literature search and give a greater understanding to why certain methods are used or not in training horses. The results show that negative reinforcement seems to be the foundation of training horses whereas positive reinforcement is used but not to the same extent.

The purpose of the study, "Living in Two Worlds" is to try to find out how the professionals in social work reasoning and thinking about children 0-3 years living alternate residence and how children 0-3 years are affected by form of housing . Questions are how they professional reasons and think about the type of housing, what advantages and disadvantages they consider are and the conditions under the professional must be satisfied that the child will not get hurt. Study is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. The theory that the study is based on the attachment theory explaining the relational processes that occurs between the child and its care person.      The results of this study show that if the parents are in great conflict with each other is important for the child cope with the alternating form of housing well or not.

The youth of today grow up with all the new ways to communicate that new technology provides. A lot of young people chat on the Internet. Adults often lack experience and knowledge about this way to communicate. This is a study of teenagers and adults values and views on teenagers online chatting. It focuses on area of use, meaning and effects on young people.

Conflict prevention is a term which has gained much influence during the last decades. To prevent conflicts from occuring have both humanitarian and economic incentives as the cost for war are much greater than the cost of acting preventive. To act in this matter has been regarded a priority for the United Nations during several years, and the European Union have also expressed a wish of playing a more active part. The essay compares the actions taken by the international organisations in Macedonia, a country which headed toward a violent conflict. The UN acted through the mission UNPREDEP and the EU through the mission of Concordia.