The purpose of this thesis is to examine how power structures concerning gender and sexuality emerge through the use of language in the Swedish reality show Paradise Hotel. Of particular interest is the representation of heterosexual relations in the show. Because of its interest in the relationship between power, gender and sexuality, the thesis is based on theories from gender and discourse studies. The specific theories referred to are Michel Foucault?s understanding of power, stereotypes according to Stuart Hall, Yvonne Hirdman?s gender system and contract theory, Judith Butler?s heterosexual matrix and R.W.

This study regards the Care of Young Persons Act, LVU, and the 2 § that focus on parent inability to care for their children. The assessment of parent ability to care for their children is performed by social workers in different municipalities. The law leaves room for interpretation concerning how to assess parent ability and therefore we found it interesting to study how social workers interpret 2 § LVU. The study?s aim was also to seek an understanding of how different categories, like gender, race, class and physical and psychical ability of the parents affect the assessment of their parenting ability, with a intersectional perspective.

The ?civilized? world is in need of fossil fuel in order to function. Hybricon AB is a company in Umeå that is developing a technology that hopefully can reduce parts of this need. They are currently testing their two electrical busses (with Hybrid backup) in city traffic on the roads of Umeå in cooperation with the county of Umeå.                               The busses are originally diesel-busses, but the diesel motor has been replaced with two electrical hub-motors with a power of 145 kW each that are powered by batteries.The batteries are charged at the end station after each route. In case the batteries should run low on capacity during driving, they can be recharged by the so called genset.

AimThe aim of this study was to develop and perform a reliability test of a questionnaire regarding side dominance in order to identify the dominant/non-dominant side in students at the Swedish alpine ski high school.MethodA questionnaire of side dominance of the upper and lower extremity was developed, and its reliability was tested according to the test-retest design. A total of 121 subjects answered the questionnaire twice. The questionnaire included five questions about side dominance, i.e. what hand/arm or foot/leg (left /right) that one prefers to use as a first choice when writing, throwing, kicking a ball, jumping over a fence and stair climbing. Furthermore, there was a question whether the responder has a safer/better ski turn to the left or to the right.

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

Abstract Essay in political science, C-level, by Patrik Larsson, autumn semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton The battle over the agenda-Can media be regarded as an individual political actor? The purpose of this essay is to study to what extent media can be regarded to function as an individual political actor. In other words, do the media have more power over the political agenda than the politicians and do the media influence how the politicians make their decisions. This research is a case study and to be able to complete the intention of this study I have used Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaws theory, the agenda-setting theory. From this theory I have used four aspects to analyse my material which has consisted of editorials from a Swedish newspaper, interpellations and debates that belong to the interpellations. The aspect I have worked with are, how the problem is defined, who is responsible for the problem, what values and which solutions are expressed.  I have used a qualitative text analysis as my methodological approach which means that the results of my study are my interpretation of the material. My conclusions are that the media in this case shouldn?t be regarded as an individual political actor because there is no tendency that shows that the media has influenced the government in their decisions concerning the real-estate tax.

The role of cultural policy within the general political planning of a community can vary both historically and regionally. The aim of this study has been to explore the cultural policy plans, during the 1990's, in the recently formed geographical region of "Västra Götaland". This is a qualitative study, carried out during 1999, and based upon structured interviews with five representatives of the cultural-policy sector in the "Västra Götaland" region. In order to identify connections and tendencies in a more general social context the aims of the five representatives regarding cultural policy have been explored from the perspective of three cultural policy paradigms, namely Dorte Skot-Hansen, Olav R. Spilling and Göran Nylöf.

This thesis for the Master of Science degree was performed at Solectron Corporation in Norrköping. The background for the thesis was a need to develop and build two test fixtures to automatize testing and adjusting of transmitter modules (TX-fixture) and receiver modules (RX-fixture) which are head devices in DWDM-systems. The basic elements for the test fixtures are: Test board, switch board and DC/DC board. The main function of the test board is to handle communication between the transmitter and receiver modules and supply voltage to these modules. The test board was insufficient and modified with a microprocessor to handle the communication between the PC and the receiver module.

Historically the library has owned more than silent, book-filled halls; it has been a center for learning and ideas, a source of both freedom and oppression, in other words, a medium for knowledge, truth, and power. Cultures have been divided into powerful and powerless through access to the library's content; those who have - and those who do not have - access to information determine which voices are heard and which are ignored, thus determining the outcome of the future. This thesis investigates how The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence portrays the relationship between knowledge and power using Michel Foucault's discourse theory. More specifically, how this relationship is manifested through the structures and norms of society, and how the library as a place and institution serves as the means by which this relationship plays out. An established classic like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is placed as a contrasting reference point to help deepen its thematic message of information control and cencurship. Furthermore, the agency of one of the main characters is also examined in the light of Anthony Giddens' stratification model, as an actor with the potential to move beyond the confines of the power structure. The analysis demonstrate how knowledge, truth, and power remain continuously thematically relevant within literature, and how the reality of our time may be better understood through literary contributions.

The aim of this study is to understand which strategies helped women escape honourbased violence, by reading the autobiographies of seven women. Honourbased violence is a relatively new problem in Sweden, but it has existed for a long time. According to FN (2012) 5000 women are murdered every year in the name of honour. Honourbased violence is about maintaining the honour of the family. Womens sexuality is connected to men´s honour, and because of that they are not allowed to express it.

Protracted social conflicts, as those in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, are based on deep rooted perceptions of identity and definitions of "the other". According to the theory of discursive conflict transformation, war is primarily a social phenomenon, which is legitimated by a discourse of identity defined in terms of exclusionist boundaries and structural ideas of the social relations in society. In order to develop positive peace, the discourse of violence has to be challenged and the discursive structures that enable war have to transform into a counterdiscourse of inclusion and individuality. For the purpose of making a critical peace analysis, I have, with the assistance of established conflict theories, analysed the basic ideas behind the the Annan Plan and the Belfast Agreement and thus been able to interpret to what extent they may foster positive peace. I argue, that in order to provide basic needs on a group basis, power sharing arrangement, based on ethnicity or religion, exacerbates division rather than ameliorating it.

AbstractThe future of ethanol is depending on good solutions for the production. ENA energy power plant produces electrical power and district heating by heating biofuel. By building an integrated bioenergy plant surplus steam could be used to produce ethanol as fuel to vehicle.This would mean that ethanol is produced renewable energy and the energy for the process derives from the surplus of power.  ENA energy, MDH (the University of Mälardalen) and the energy authority has initiated a research project were different bioenergy combinations integrate with existing power plant.  As a part of the project which size an integrated factory should be to gain the best efficiency for the plant was investigated. Consideration will be taken to the cost of the production in order to be competitive to the price of imported ethanol.  Etanolens framtid vilar på bra lösningar för framställning.  I ENA energi kraftverk i Enköping produceras el och fjärrvärme genom eldning av biobränsle.  Genom att bygga ett integrerat bioenergikraftverk där skulle man kunna använda överskottsånga till att framställa etanol som fordonsbränsle.

Denna undersökning syftar till att med en kvalitativ receptionsanalys svara på frågan hur de anställda på Banken X tolkar en intern reklamfilm på ett dominant, förhandlande eller oppositionellt vis. Ytterligare en frågeställning om huruvida de anställdas uppfattning av begreppet ambition, som är centralt i den interna kampanjen, korresponderar med det som Banken X vill att den ska förmedla. Undersökningens metodik är en receptionsstudie som innefattar dominant, förhandlande samt oppositionella tolkningar. Resultatet för dessa tolkningar bygger på nio stycken kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer med anställda på ett av bankens lokalkontor.Våra teoretiska utgångspunkter är receptionsanalys, kritisk teori, socialkonstruktionism, interkommunikation samt företagskultur. Teorierna har legat till grund för vår analys samt resultat.Resultaten visar på att olika tolkningar av den interna reklamfilmen har gjorts av de anställda, men att den dominanta tolkningen var den mest framstående. Vidare har vi sett att ambition är ett väldigt brett begrepp som tolkas olika av de anställda vilket gör det svårt att få en helt koherent uppfattning av de över tusen anställda.Vi har kommit fram till att våra valda teorier internkommunikation och företagskultur är starkt sammankopplade på det vis att internkommunikationen på något vis definierar företagets kultur.Undersökningen har även visat på att det som behövs för att nå en ökad förståelse hos de anställda är mer diskussion och information kring vad begreppet ambition står för i företagets kontext samt vad man vill förmedla både internt och externt till kunderna..

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the ways in which the constructions of heterosexuality and gender in three Disney movies about princesses affect the power relations between men and women in the movies, and how discourses on gender and heterosexuality have changed over time. Research questions were:How do characters in the movies talk about gender and heterosexuality?How does the interplay between gender and heterosexuality affect the power relations between men and women in the movies?What are the likenesses and differences between movies from different time periods?Discourses were mapped out using a model based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe?s political theories. These discourses were then analyzed with a theoretical framework consisting of Yvonne Hirdman?s concept of gender system and gender contracts, Judith Butler?s view on the heterosexual matrix and an understanding of power relations based on Michel Foucault.

Det här arbetet utfördes på ABB Corporate Research, och innefattar en studie av motorstyrning i allmänhet, och hur man med hjälp av en Intelligent Power Module kan effektivisera motorstyrning genom att ersätta separata kraft- och styrmoduler med en kombinerad modul. En IPM från International Rectifier har modifierats och testats genom att under en längre tid låta den styra en permanentmagnetmotor under normala förhållanden. Resultatet från testkörningen visar att en IPM är ett bra alternativ i framtiden, såväl i fråga om effektivitet, som kostnad och utrymme. Efter en undersökning av marknaden visar det sig att det är långt ifrån säkert att modulen från International Rectifier är den bästa som finns att tillgå, och det skulle förmodligen löna sig att testköra IPM:er av andra tillverkare i mån av tid och pengar..