The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the performance of queries that are expanded by synonyms and hyponyms from Svenskt OrdNät, the Swedish version of the Princeton WordNet. Four different types of queries were constructed: a baseline query S1, the baseline query expanded with synonyms S2, the baseline query expanded with hyponyms S3 and finally the baseline query expanded with the synonyms and hyponyms used in S2 and S3. The terms for expansion were picked by hand. The queries were executed in the Query Performance Analyser QPA, a tool used in IR education and in experimental IR research for analysing and comparing the performance of individual queries. 20 topics from the test collection GP_HDINF were chosen for the experiment.

Health and fitness are two controversial and not easily defined topics that affect people in our modern society every day. We believe that we can find a link between individualism, globalization and the stress concerning weight and appearance ideals. Our bodies have turned into a popular subject for the media, and there is no indication that the interest will Decline. As the world gets more artificial, "natural" ideals are getting more attention, such as the concept of a strong and healthy body. But there is also a downside, for example with health issues such as cardiovascular disease increasing following the birth of high-fat diets.

Can degree of degenerative brain disease be predicted with the help of measurements of cognitive deterioration?Alzheimer?s disease progresses through nerve cell break down in the brain and the simultaneous deterioration of the individual?s cognitive function. This disease is common among elderly persons. This thesis examines if the level of deterioration of cognitive function is associated with different biochemical and clinical markers for degenerative brain diseases. In addition, this thesis examines if the level of Decline in cognitive functions vary between groups with different levels of degenerative brain disease.

The species in the genus bumblebees (Bombus) are important pollinators. In the world there are 250 bumblebee species and there are 34 species in Norway. The purpose of this study is 1) to assess changes in the species composition of bumblebees in twenty different places in Norway that have been inventoried first one time between 1939-1960 and the second time in 2012, and 2) to relate species richness and distributions to current landscape composition with the aid of orthophotos. In this study, I have used regression analyzes on the different bumblebee species that were present or absent at the inventory, using the premises of the following variables: low or high altitude, latitude, longitude and seven different types of land use (farmland, building/plots, open land/pasture, forest, wetland and open or snow-covered ground above the tree line) to see if there was any relationship between each species and the different variables. I have not analyzed what the landscape looked like at the first inventories and therefore we cannot say whether it has changed and if that is why species number has decreased. This would be interesting to study further and to see if there is any relationship between landscape changes and bumblebee?s species Decline.

The aim of the study was to compare how the population of pine (Pinus sylvestris) and spruce (Picea abies) have changed between 1927 and 2013 in the oak landscape south of Linköping. A field study was carried out in 22 two kilometre lines which also had been studied in 1927. In these lines, which where ten meters broad and had a direction from west to east, the pines and spruces were counted, measured and classified by steam diameter. The obtained result was that the basal steam area (m²/ha) had increased for pine (44%) and spruce (57%) between 1927 and 2013. The amount of trees had increased in all diameter classes except thinner pine and spruce with a diameter of 5-10cm.

The association between social parameters (i.e. socio-economy and level of education) and voting behaviour has been reviewed and analysed based on data from municipal council elections in Stockholm and Gothenburg in 2002. Some social scientists argue that the class voting is in Decline and that new social cleavages have emerged. However, by using regression analysis techniques, this study implies a strong dependence of voting behaviour on social parameters, such as socio-economic status (SES) and level of education. Socio-economy appears to be a dominant predictor in the analysis.

In my thesis, I set out to study academic peer reviews in the hope of clarifying the experts? views on what qualities and qualifications are desirable when appointing or promoting scholars within History of Science. I also investigate whether or not these views change over the years, as I have studied opinions written between 1980 and 2010. I use a qualitative method of analysis, in which I study what words in the peer reviews are used to describe certain values, and how these words relate to the historical and political background of History of Science in Sweden. My research indicates that academic experts are starting to adapt their opinions to the change in educational politics that has taken place during the second half of the 20th century.

In Sweden, the labour movement historically had influenced both society and politics. In recent times, it is considered a change in society with a stronger employer party while the unions weakened by reduced unionisation. This study aims to highlight the presence of individualistic and collectivistic approaches to the labour market in relation to union density. The different approaches are investigated in the labour market by means of a quantitative survey. The study's survey items are workers in the timber industry.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on a present trend of professionalization in Swedish local environmental politics, which have recently seen a Decline in active participation of the citizens in favor of an increased governmental regulation. With the aim to closer investigate this relatively new phenomenon, the paper is a qualitative single case-study of environmental policies in the Swedish municipality of Karlskrona. In this case, the municipality is obviously balancing between regarding the interests of the national level and the interests of its own citizens at the same time. This motivates the use of system-theory, and relates to the classical political paradox between participation and efficiency which is also a present theme in the paper.This text-analysis based on interviews with personnel and documents from the municipality shows a visible trend of professionalization in the local politics of the municipality of Karlskrona, from a large grade of participation and a strong bottom-up approach in the days of Agenda 21 to now being more strongly top-down defined by national environmental objectives and principally operated on a professional level..

The sandy beaches of Vänern are threatened by overgrowth and thereby the biodiversity is at high risk to Decline. This study is based on an inventory of vegetation of overgrowth character and mosses. The frequency and spread of mosses is perceived as an indication of initial or present overgrowth. External factors that have been taken into consideration are wind-, wave- and ice erosion, the slope of the beach, wear and grade of exposure. The purpose of the investigation is to control the beaches grade of overgrowth and find out which external factor is of most importance for the maintenance of the biotope. The results show that the beaches environment is affected by the slope of the beach, grade of exposure, size, wear and overgrowth.

Today, nine out of ten municipalities are active on social media and it has become increasingly popular among municipalities that make use of placemarketing to promote their particular region. A problem that is raised in this study is that the population of the municipalities in northern Sweden often is in Decline. The purpose of this study is to investigate how a democratic-controlled organization such as Luleå Municipality uses the social media Facebook in its placemarketing, to highlight a place of scale and to attract new residents and stakeholders to move to or visit the city. In order to answer the purpose I have with the help of a critical discourse analysis examined how Luleå Municipality using social media Facebook in their marketing of Luleå as a place. The results were then analyzed using theories of placemarketing, Norrland and the market-oriented municipality.

This bachelor?s thesis studies Carl Str?mbergs ?ppeltr?dg?rd, a private garden consisting of a large number of apple trees and varieties. The garden is located outside ?rebro, in N?rke, and is owned by a unit owner association whose goal is to preserve and determine the varieties. Through interviews, articles, site visits and documents from Carl Str?mberg, the purpose have been to get an understanding of who Carl Str?mberg was, how he collected the apple varieties and how that process was affected by the climate amongst apple growing and pomology during that time.

The purpose of our study is to interpret and understand the experiences that parents to multilingual children have towards multilingualism in pre-school. We are also interested in finding out what these parents think about their children?s development in multilingualism both in pre-school and at home. Our study is based on qualitative interviews. We interviewed nine families that have multilingual children in pre-school.  The data we collected from our interviews has been analyzed using socio-cultural and inter-cultural theories along with previous research. The result of our study showed that parents to multilingual children have both positive and negative opinions about the multilingual concept. Most of our informants had positive opinions about multilingualism in general.

The purpose with our study was to see if and how the amount of articles regarding different sports has changed during the last three decades. If it had changed our target was to se how and why it had changed. We have performed a quantitative content analysis. In the analysis we have studied the two national Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. In doing so we have created two synthetic weeks in each of the years 1986, 1999 and 2012.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in Decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.