The purpose of the study was to inquire into pupils? attitude towards the current beauty ideal from a gender- and an ethnicity perspective. The study was based on a quantitative survey among 116 young students about prevailing beauty ideal from two different schools in the Stockholm area. The result showed that the students are partially characterized by the stereotyped images of women and men but that there are tendencies towards another view especially among the girls. It is however clear that appearance still is important.

The aim of this study was to examine the view that officials involved in youth unemployment have on the significance of collaboration between organizations working with unemployed youth. The study was based on nine qualitative interviews with officials from PES offices and from municipalities such as job coaches. The results were analyzed based on qualitative content analysis. The analysis led to two different themes: conditions and the individual. In the analysis two different theories were used, new institutionalism and Lipsky's theory about street-level bureaucrats.

The subject of this study is factors that contribute to immigrants wellbeing in their new country. Our purpose was to describe and examine different factors that according to eight immigrants have contributed to their wellbeing in Sweden. Our main question was: Which factors have, according to our respondents, contributed to their wellbeing in Sweden.To achieve this, we have conducted qualitative interviews with eight different individuals. We also collected current documents and research related to the subject matter. We chose three different theoretical perspectives: Antonovsky´s Sense of coherence, Maslow´s Hierarchy of needs and Mischel´s CAPS-theory (cognitive-affective personality system) as models for the explanation of our analysis.The result of our survey was that we could detach six different categories which the respondents expressed had contributed to their wellbeing.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva vilka faktorer som i omvårdnadsforskningen beskrivs som bidragande faktorer till akut delirium. Syftet var vidare att beskriva vilka omvårdnadsåtgärder som omvårdnadsforskningen tar upp som kan minska risken för uppkomst av akut delirium. Resultatet baserades på vetenskapliga artiklar som söktes i följande databaser: Elin@dalarna, BlackwellSynergy, PubMed och EBSCO host. Följande sökord användes: delirium, acute, elderly, nursing, patients, caring, management, confusional state, needs. Artiklarna granskades enligt en granskningsmall med avseende på vetenskaplig kvalité.

Efficient energy use in the housing sector is crucial for achieving a sustainable society. The expansion of this sector only represents a fraction of the existing houses, hence it?s within the existing houses the potential for energy savings lie. This potential has been analyzed in order to determine if it?s possible to cut the current energy demand in half.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

The purpose with this master thesis is to analyze how the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) acts in an environment that changes fast with more regional actors than ever before. There are also proposals regarding new public authorities and eventually a reduction of the Swedish County Administrative Board.By studying a report issued by the Board in December 2005 the aim is to find their intentions and actions for the future. By using three diverse theoretical concepts - the public organisation, the instrumental perspective and two separate perspectives from new institutionalism - the expectation is that I will have the possibility to analyze the intentions of the organisation in many different ways.In this case study I also want to take into consideration the central discourses in the regional debate, shall we decentralize or shall we keep on having a strong state even in the future? What kind of regional policy does the Swedish County Administrative Board prefer?The result shows that the Swedish County Administrative Board struggles for a strong state even in the future, but it does not propose any huge changes. In many ways it seems like they act as they are supposed to - as an instrument for the government - but despite that it is obvious that the Swedish County Administrative Board tries to show that it has the traditions and knowledge.

Media has in the last year been dominated by news about the current financial crisis around the world. For the banking system in Sweden the crisis began to show in the beginning of 2008 and there where a lot of speculations about how serious the crisis would be and it?s consequences. In several aspects, the banks' situation in the current crisis, are linked to the banking crisis in the 1990s. Although these crises have had different break-out reasons, there are several parallels between these crises to be drawn.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

About 1000 women in the so called developing countries die every day associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected region. This study aims to explore the different key factors in national development that can interact with a reduced maternal mortality. The study compares 15 countries in sub-Sahara where the greatest reduction in maternal mortality occurred with 15 countries in sub-Sahara where maternal mortality reduction has been at its lowest, between the years 2000 to 2010. This study also analyzes the link between reduced maternal mortality and various key factors for national development.

This qualitative study treats the construction and maintenance of balance between work and private life and how flexibility in the workplace is perceived. The study was conducted using semi-structured interviews and these have been conducted in five large companies around Gothenburg. The analysis and results are based on the phenomenographic method approach and the final results were four themes: Balance, Flexibility, Combining family and work and lifelong learning with related subcategories. The result shows that the construction and maintenance of balance between work and personal life is something that is tied to the indi-viduals and the current situation in life. Two of the most common strategies to maintain a dis-tinction proved to be planning as well as other activities, in order to move the focus away from the work.

The aim of this paper is to examine how gender roles are described in two children's books and compare the results against the curriculum Lgr11 's values. The compared books have different aims though one of the analyzed books claimed to go against the gender roles and the other one isn?t. The method of analysis is discourse analysis and deconstruction of the text by using Nikolajeva´s (2004) pattern for stereotype gender descriptions and Kåreland´s (2005) analysis of story actions based on gender representations in children's literature. The analysis of the texts shows that there are differences between how the two books characters are described depending on gender. What emerges is that in one of the books femininity is valued high but instead it lacks equality between the sexes, while in the second book the main characters are described as equal even though the other characters are described in a stereotypical way.

The aim of this study is to analyze Hinduism in upper secondary school textbooks using a gender-based perspective. The specific material used consists of four textbooks, whereof two are published prior to the curriculum Lgy 11 and two are published after Lgy 11. In order to analyze the textbooks the following methods are used: content analysis, picture analysis and comparative analysis. First, the contents and pictures of the textbooks are analyzed using theories on gender. After this analysis the results are compared to the relevant curriculum and its guidelines for the analyzed subject.

Purpose/Aim: This study is an analysis of the view on masculinity, male sexuality and creation of identity with the television series Queer as folk as a base. The analysis is partly based on a semiotic analysis of the representation of masculinity and male sexuality from an episode of the chosen television series Queer as folk, and partly based on a thematic analysis of focus group discussions with young men with different sexualities.Material/Method: This study is based on focus group interviews and a semiotic and thematic analysis. The focus groups consisted of three men in three different groups and were chosen on the criteria of gender and sexuality. All groups were presented with an episode of the television series Queer as folk to see how they perceived masculinity and male sexuality. Their discussions were analyzed with a thematic analysis and the television series Queer as folk with a semiotic analysis.Main results: The three analyzed characters in Queer as folk showed different representations of masculinity and male sexuality.