This thesis aims to examine when democratic consolidation took place in Costa Rica from a maximalistic perspective. The hypothesis is that it?s likely that the democracy was not consolidated as early as 1953 which would be the case if applying a minimalistic perspective. Linz and Stepan?s theory about democratic consolidation has been chosen as the theoretical framework of the thesis and the research has been conducted by using a qualitative text analysis.

Media and social media have been proved to occupy an increased amount of time in people's everyday lives and affect how individuals interpret reality. This phenomenon is referred to as the medialization and its implications on organizations and their members become important to understand. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine how members of an organization under intense scrutiny from the media are affected by this exposure in their everyday work. To gain knowledge about the area a qualitative case study was performed on the Swedish train operator SJ AB - one of the most media exposed organizations in the country. A theoretical framework is developed for the study and discusses organizational identity, stigmatization and motivation.

Forskning och nya innovationer inom området medieteknik skapar nya möjligheter inom den svenska sjukvården. I denna rapport undersöks fem telemedicinska scenarier från Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset i Stockholm och tre systemkoncept från forskningsgruppen Mediating Presence. Systemkoncepten är: Hydra, Det Medierade Ritbordet och Video Orchestration. Syftet är att utforska potentialen hos dessa systemkoncept i de undersökta sjukvårdsscenarierna. Genom litteraturstudier, intervjuer och observationer har information samlats om scenarier och systemkoncept. Med detta som grund har ett framework tagits fram för att utvärdera vilken potential dessa tre systemkoncept har i de undersökta sjukvårdsscenarierna.

The purpose of this Bachelor?s thesis is to describe and analyze the implementation of Facebook in a public library. A case study consisting of qualitative interviews and studies of documents containing goals for the library has been conducted at a public library going through the process of implementing Facebook in their operations. The theoretical framework for this study consists of Everett M. Rogers?s stages of the innovation-decision process and his characteristics of innovations as perceived by individuals.

The aim of this essay is to answer the question of how, and in what ways Martina Bigert?s and Maria Thulin?s picture Allt om min buske (literally, All about my bush) is queer. Inspired by Judith Butler?s idea of the heterosexual matrix, and Michel Foucault?s discourse I attempt to investigate how sex and sexuality are described in relation to heteronormativity, and if Allt om min buske is either norm-breaking or norm-creating in a wider perspective. This study concludes that antinormativity and queerness are evident within the framework of the picture.

The starting point of this work has been to get knowledge about teachers working in a mathematical workshop with the students. I also wanted to investigate what students think about math, both within the workshop and in traditional teaching.To achieve this I chose to interview a teacher in charge within the framework of a mathematical workshop, and six students in the 5th grade. I also did a lesson observation with the purpose to see how well the teacher?s tutoring agrees with the results of the interview.In this study I have discovered that the lessons in the mathematical workshop are planned after what the students are working with in the textbook. The teacher opens the lessons with the whole class and then splits it up in groups.

Problem discussion: Long-term supplier relationships have become more common. Hence, supplier evaluation is a critical activity for many companies. However, making a relevant supplier evaluation is time consuming. Therefore, it is important to decide which of the suppliers to put an extra effort on. Should all suppliers be evaluated in the same way? Previous, focus has been on purchasing of direct material.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the reason behind thedecision to open libraries at subway stations in Stockholm.The theoretical framework for the study is Douglas Raber´s threeideologies, social activism, conservative response and populistinitiative. The study includes interviews with librarians and apolitician responsible for the service and documents with plansfor the Public Libraries development during the period. Theempirical material was examined with an idea- and ideologicalanalysis.The conclusion is that the concept of the subway libraries consistsof a combination of the three ideologies but the most evidentare those of populist initiative and social activism.The reason for opening libraries at subway stations is to makethe libraries more easily accessible, to attract new visitors and tomake the Public Libraries service more visible. These smalllibraries have a function as a market place for the Public Librariesand as a meeting place in the city..

Non-profit organizations gain increasing attention in society but their legitimacy often decrease by scandals in separate organizations. Doctors without borders (MSF) constitutes an exception and has managed to retain their legitimacy. The aim of this study was to examine how MSF built and retained its legitimacy towards institutional actors in their environment, when the branch in general is suffering from a crisis of confidence. In a case study, this was done by identifying the institutional pressures on MSF and examining which strategies MSF uses to handle the pressures. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with employees at MSF and actors in their environment.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the information needs of reporters at a Swedish daily newspaper, and see if they are met by the information resources provided by the newspaper. It examines if there are resources which are not used and why. The examination is based on Henczel?s model for information auditing.

This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how students who also serve as writers of bachelor theses mainly utilizing the discourse analysis methodology comprehend the method of discourse analysis, and in what way the students bestow it in their research.Methodology and Material: This is a case study of the theses, which are also the text material, as it can be used examining numerous cases. Another beneficial factor is the relationship to the theoretical framework. One does not need to divorce the two institutions; instead they cooperate with each other.Results: A thoroughgoing apprehension of the Discourse Analysis is it being strongly attached to semiotics and how texts can be analyzed by the method in question to reveal institutions in our society alongside with mapping out the agency of words. In other words, language and soceiety mirror each other in a way or another...Key words: Discourse Analysis, thesis, Foucault, Fairclough, Laclau & Mouffe, language, reality, readings.

This essay revolves around the organization Mobile Art Production, MAP, and their artexhibition Street View shown on Kungsportsavenyn, Gothenburg two weeks in April 2010. Beingan alternative to traditional art institutions, MAP sets out goals for their activities and the aim ofthe essay is to examine whether the main goals of the organization were fulfilled through theexhibition. In Street View six Swedish artists participated with a total of seven artworks.The theoretical framework is formed using Arthur C. Dantos today classic essay ?The Art World?,Anne Ring Petersens definition of installation art and Nicolas Bourriauds term and bookRelational Aesthetics.

The purpose of this study is to describe the motivations of women to participate in politics and to examine whether women feel that they are held back by something in their political participation. The questions of this study are:How do women motivate their participation in different fields in politics?Are there any obstacles that are holding women back in their political participation? Interviews have been used as the method to gather the empirical data. When applying the theoretical framework on the empirical material the main conclusion is that women tend to participate more frequently in political activities that are less time consuming and more sporadic in comparison to more traditional forms of political participation. Women are also more inclined to participate in political activities on a lower level that makes up part of their everyday life, one example of this is women?s increasing participating in political consumerism. Keywords: Politiskt deltagande, kvinnor, motivation, politik, politisk jämlikhet, politiska sfärer.

 This abstract describes the bachelor degree thesis in computer technology at Växjö University. The company BSR in Växjö has requested an application that can measure a cars performance, with attributes like acceleration times and engine power estimation. The communication between car and computer is via the USB port on the computer and the OBD-II socket on the car with the network protocol CAN, controller area network. Cars from VAG have been the primary focus group and the application has been tested on a Volkswagen Passat CC from 2009. The system is developed in the programming language C# in the environment Visual Studio with the framework .NET.