The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the discourses of concepts related to diversity and ethnicity in Swedish cultural policy. It focuses on how the society is presented in different contexts and how people with a different ethnic origin than the majority, are represented in the cultural policy of the Swedish State. The study is restricted to concern immigrants. Six governmental cultural policy documents, reaching over a time period of eight years 1995-2003 are examined as follows: Which key terms are used in the presentations? Which contexts and discourses can be distinguished? Have the discourses changed over the time period examined, and if so, how? The theoretical starting point in the thesis is the discourse perspective of Laclau and Mouffe.

AbstractThe aim of this review was to describe how quality of life is experienced among patients with diabetes type 2. Literature search was made in Medline and the keywords used were ?diabetes mellitus type 2? and ?quality of life?. Twenty studies were examined and categorized into four sections: Quality of life during complications due to diabetes type 2, quality of life during various treatments, quality of life during depression and quality of life and aspects in relation to the individual as well as social aspects. The designs of the studies were of a varying kind: randomized controlled studies, comparative studies, correlative studies and descriptive studies.

Suicide research has a long tradition within sociology. Parallel to the Durkheimian tradition, seeking the causes of suicide in societal factors, a more cultural understanding of suicide has been emphasized. Attitudes to suicide have been stressed as important for the understanding of suicide mortality levels in different societies. For Russia, where suicide mortality levels are among the highest in the world, an understanding of this kind might be of particular importance.Based on a survey study from Moscow 2004, attitudes to suicide were studied in relation to social, economic and demographic factors as well as to attitudes to other morally disputable behaviors. Suicide attitudes in different age and sex groups in the sample were further compared to suicide mortality levels in the corresponding groups in the population.

A great number of empirical researches show that hedging is associated with higher firm value, particularly hedging interest rate and exchange rate. However, there is no clear support for value-added risk management hypothesis in the case of producers of commodities. Moreover, according to Shrand and Unal (1997), there are two types of risks, core business risks (or core risk) and homogeneous risks (or non core risks), which are based on a firm's comparative advantages with respects to the source of risk. Firm can earn economic profits for bearing core risks in which it has a comparative information advantage. Firm earn a zero economic rents for bearing non-core risks, where it has no advantage information than its competitors.

Arbetsförmedlingen is the Swedish national authority responsible for the work politics, and its main purpose is to create and build a solid and sustainable job market.Economic crises together with changes in the society and in the organization over the past few years mean that the unemployed individuals that come in contact with Arbetsförmedlingen are no longer a homogenous group. A lot of effort is put into helping those who may find it difficult to enter the work environment, such as youths (19 ? 26 years old), people who have been unemployed or on sick leave for a long period of time, people with disabilities or immigrants who are newly arrived in Sweden.A harder social and economic climate can lead to frustration among the unemployed which mean that security measures at the offices has had to become adjusted. Local offices now have a public area where they have meetings with their clients and a locked open plan office space to which the public have no access. Working within an open plan office environment can cause health problems, mostly due to the constant background noise that comes from people having conversations on the phone, or with each other.

This essay deals with risk management and social risks, which have received increased attentionin recent years. Methods for dealing with social risks, for example within local Risk andvulnerability assessment (RSA), are currently under development. The purpose of this paper is toexamine if and how social risk can be quantitatively assessed and mapped using GeographicInformation Systems (GIS). The definition of social risk that the essay is based on states: "Theprobability of unwanted events, behaviors or conditions originating in the social conditions thathave a negative impact on the objects that are worth to preserve.? A number of social riskindicators that can be used for a spatial analysis have been operationalized based on thisdefinition.

Sammanfattning/Abstract Världens energisystem är huvudsakligen baserade på fossila bränslen. Förbränning av fossila bränslen medför olika konsekvenser för miljön såsom ökad växthuseffekt och försurning. Kostnaderna för dessa miljökonsekvenser är vanligen externa och därmed sällan inkluderade i priserna på marknaden. Mot denna bakgrund är det samhällsekonomiskt intressant att analysera hur resursanvändning och energi-produktion påverkas ifall dessa kostnader internaliserades i priserna på världens energi- och råvarumarknader. Som teoretisk bakgrund för analysen presenteras en ekonomisk teori för optimal resursanvändning.

The purpose of this investigation is to see if there is any difference in how long pupils are staying in the activity of the music- and culture schools in the country. I have compared this with how large the teachers engagements are in average at each school, how many teachers each school holds and if one teacher is teaching within different areas, e.g. on different instruments. Thru mail contact with the headmasters at the music- and culture schools I have gathered data concerning the length of which the pupils are staying at the schools, the number of teachers at each school, the size of the teachers services and in how many different areas each teacher is teaching.It has been hard to get to any results in the investigation since the music- and culture schools don?t compile statistics on how long their pupils are staying at their schools.

During the recent financial crisis there has been an intense debate regarding small enterprise?s possibilities to borrow money. Statements from interest groups and results from surveys among Swedish non-financial companies indicate that their situation has worsened. Credit worthy enterprises that under normal circumstances would not have any problems getting financing are now facing financial difficulties. In contrast, an economic report from the Bank of Sweden concludes that Sweden does not suffer from a severe credit rationing due to the financial crisis.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to analyze the relation between the discursive formation and the optical formation in the public library-apparatus. An ongoing individualization process in the library field and in society at large is used as a backdrop in the analysis. Discourse analysis is used as a method to explore the main Swedish library periodicals Biblioteksbladet, Bibliotek i Samhälle and DIK-forum. All issues from the years 1999 and 2009 have been used as material. The main analytical instruments applied in the analysis of this material are Michel Foucault's terms dispositive, apparatus and diagram.

The well-being of employees has become a key concept in the rhetoric of the company boards and business literature of today. There is however not much statistic evidence of a connection between economic results and the perceived working climate. This thesis sets out to investigate whether there is a positive correlation between economic results and working climate on a work group level. It also aims to study which specific working climate factors influence the results. In order to meet its purpose this thesis analyzes employee satisfaction questionnaire data and economic results from more than 300 work groups.

This report summarizes the development of a calculation program estimating the profitability of converting a peak-load oil-fired boiler to pellets. To convert an oil-fired boiler to pellets a new fuel handling system must be designed. Changes also have to be made to some other components. Since there are many different techniques for transportation, storage and treatment of the fuel only the most interesting techniques from Swecos experience and interest were included in the study.The capacity of the different parts in the system was dimensioned based on the power of the boiler after conversion. To estimate prices, installed power and dimensions manufacturers and distributers were contacted.

Nanotechnology, one of the most interesting sciences today will no doubt have an enourmous impact on tomorrow's society and industry. One of the most interesting nanomaterial that has been discovered is the semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This material shows interesting novel properties such as a size-dependent band gap, which is an effect caused by the quantum confinement effect in all three dimensions. Due to this phenomenon the absorption spectrum can be tuned to the desired value by adjusting the size of the QD.This thesis aims to investigate how the solvent ratio of H2O/Ethanol affects the optical and structural properties of copper sulfide QDs manufactured in a chemical synthesis way using modern microwave heating. The process of manufacturing QDs using chemical synthesis often involve a capping-agent to prevent the QDs from agglomerate into bigger structures.

Mezzanine is a collective term for hybrid instruments on the leverage finance market, offered as an alternative to traditional debt. As a hybrid, mezzanine combines elements of debt and equity financing. Mezzanine appears, in its most common shape, as subordinated to the senior debt, but ranks higher than pure equity. Reminiscent of security interests, the main importance of subordination is upon the default of the borrower. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is partly to investigate the legal prerequisites for a solid subordination of mezzanine financing, and partly to explain the consequences of subordination in a default.

The purpose of this report is to investigate and compare the difference between stand-thinning machines and strip-road thinning machines, and how they affect the stand on behalf of future growth, theoretical economic result, wind impact, snow pressure and density of stand. The investigation is regarding the first commercial thinning of pine stands, after pre-commercial thinning that was well conducted. The investigation area was located near Katrineholm, Sweden. The measurements that were measured were strength of thinning and amounts of wind throws, snow-breaks and hauling damages. The results that emerged, was that thinning with strip-road machines had a significantly higher strength of thinning over all, as compared with the stand- thinning machines (45 percent versus 30 percent). Comparisons between wind-throws, snow-breaks and hauling damages of the stand could not establish any significant differences between the two methods that were investigated. Conclusions, over all, were that if forest owners want to have more timber volume left for second thinning and final cut of the stand, the forest owners should choose the method with stand-thinning machines. From the point of view of gentle treatment of the stand and ground damages the choice should be the same. However, the method with strip-road thinning machines is the most common and accessible method in Sweden. Most likely it is the most economical way to manage the stand for forest owners in present time. If the method with stand-thinning machines is becoming more common in Sweden, it is suggested for forest owners to consider the stand-thinning method as a candidate for treatment due to economic aspects..