This essay deals with the political upheavals which occurred in Japan with the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and its impact on the Samurai Class. This transitional period in Japanese history is portrayed in the film The Last Samurai from 2003, and it's the comparison between this Hollywood production and the current research on the subject on which this essay focuses. Two key figures who are portrayed in the film are Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), an American soldier from the Indian Wars of the 1860/70s who travels to Japan to quell the Samurai rebellion but ends up in captivity; only to learn their codex of honor and way of life and eventually become a Samurai himself. The other character calls himself Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) and becomes the representative of the Samurai's struggle for their existence. Their friendship and cultural exchanges will remain a cornerstone throughout the film.

The purpose of this study is to investigate differences of how the Swedishemployees union ?Unionen? communicates with its members, on one hand thosewho are members of local union clubs and on the other non-club members. Thenumber of non-club members has increased due to labour market changes implyingthat workplaces have been fragmented and hence affect the possibility to form localunion clubs.The questions posed in the study are: How does Unionen communicate with itsmembers? How does the communication differ between club members and non-clubmembers? What are the preferences of Unionen´s members as far as communicationwith the central organization? What kind of information do the members seek andhow do they find it? What values does Unionen represent? Are there differencesbetween the messages that Unionen is sends out and how members and non-clubmembers, respectively, perceive them?A case study method has been used applying both quantitative and qualitativeanalyses. Quantitative methods have been used in illustrating the number ofdiscussion subjects at Unionen´s website, the members needs for receivingcommunication and channel usage while qualitative methodologies have been usedin interviews with Unionen´s members, club chairmen and union representatives aswell as semiotic picture analyses and analyses based on methods of Uses andgratifications theory.One conclusion of the study is that two significant differences of communicationhave been found between members and non-club members.

Access for disabled people in the outdoor environment is an important and accurate issue for landscape architects. The demands on public places are increasing and the aim is that everyone should be able to use the environment and be a part of the society. To enable this, landscape architects must put and extra effort to their design. This report shows examples from Uppsala Travel Centre where different ways of travelling meets in one place and many people pass on a daily basis. The area is newly built and should thereby represent modern solutions that enable access for disabled people.

Diabetes mellitus is characterised by persistent hyperglycemia in all species. Fructosamine is a glycated protein reflecting blood glucose concentration during the preceding weeks. It has become a valuable analysis to differentiate persistent hyperglycemia from transient stress induced hyperglycemia in cats. It is also used to evaluate current therapy in diabetic patients. Although fructosamine is a well accepted analysis, it is sometimes regarded with scepticism.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine and analyse how the public librarys mission is interpreted and formulated in a selection of library related journals. The journals are both international scientific referee journals from the LIS field and journals with a closer connection to the practitioners within the public library field. The idea is that these journals can be seen as windows to an academic theoretic perspective on public libraries, as well as to the practitioners way of talking about the librarys mission. The study also aims to examine if there is a difference in the way that the librarys mission is interpreted and discussed among theorists and among practitioners within the field. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory, and the method is text analytic.

This master thesis investigates attitudes toward electronic publishing of fiction among the key participants authors and publishers in Sweden with the overall purpose of analysing the nature of these attitudes and what sort of tensions that exist between the two groups. The major areas of concern were formulated as: what sort of attitudes do authors and publishers display toward electronic publishing of fiction?, how do these attitudes affect the way the two groups relate to electronic publishing and to each other? and how do they perceive the future of this practice?. Everett Rogers diffusion of innovations theory was applied to characterise electronic publishing as an innovation cluster, and to investigate innovation attributes in form of relative advantages and disadvantages, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Data was gathered using quantitative questionnaires, but respondents were also given the opportunity to elaborate freely on some of the questions.

This report will present an energy efficient building in the centre of Kalmar city. It willbecome energy efficient because of the worldwide goal to reduce our energy using in ourbuildings.The values of architecture have been given a great part in this report. The building is supposed to be placed in Kvarnholmen in a unique environment in centre of Kalmar city.Because of the placement it is very important to show respect to the surroundings and the history of Kalmar..

Problem Då genusframställningen i medierna tenderar att bidra till att skapa stereotyper och en möjligt felaktig bild av kvinnor finns ett behov av att studera på vilket sätt en medietext har möjlighet att skapa kvinnliga konstruktioner ? positiva och negativa. Genom att studera Förkvälls språk ville vi komma fram vad innehållet förmedlade, vad som sägs varför. Syfte Uppsatsens syfte är att studera om och hur konstruktioner av kvinnan och kvinnlighet förmedlas genom språket i programmet Förkväll.Bakgrund Förkväll sänds på TV4 måndag till fredag på kvällstid. Programmet leds av fyra kvinnliga programledare och sänds från andra våningen på T-centralen i Stockholm.

Studiens syfte är att kartlägga yrkesverksamma sfi-lärares kunskaper om ordförråd och ordbildning i svenska språket och vad de anser vara bra undervisning i detta ämne. Frågeställningarna är vilka grundläggande kunskaper sfi-lärare har om ordförrådets uppbyggnad och organisation hos enskilda språkanvändare, vilka grundläggande kunskaper de har om det svenska ordbildningssystemet och vad man anser vara god undervisning i ordkunskap. Materialet som har använts för att besvara frågeställningarna är en enkätundersökning som också innehöll en kunskapskartläggning. Denna undersökning kompletterades med fyra intervjuer, genomförda några veckor efter den skriftliga undersökningen. I undersökningen deltog tio sfi-lärare, yrkesverksamma inom två olika kommunala vuxenutbildningar.Resultatet visar att sfi-lärare har grundläggande kunskaper om det svenska ordbildningssystemet och om ordinlärning men att det finns utrymme för kunskapsförbättringar.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie ?r att utforska och f?rst? hur kvinnor med utomeuropeisk bakgrund upplever inkludering och exkludering inom arbetsgemenskapen p? sitt arbete inom IT-branschen. F?r att n? denna f?rst?else unders?ks vilka normer kring k?n och etnicitet kvinnor med utomeuropeisk bakgrund upplever finns inom arbetsgemenskapen samt hur de f?rh?ller sig till dem. Fr?gest?llningar: Vilka normer kring k?n och etnicitet upplever kvinnor med utomeuropeisk bakgrund existerar inom arbetsgemenskapen p? deras arbetsplats inom IT-branschen? P? vilka s?tt upplever kvinnor med utomeuropeisk bakgrund att de exkluderas och inkluderas i arbetsgemenskapen p? sin arbetsplats inom IT-branschen? Vilka olika handlingsstrategier har kvinnor med utomeuropeisk bakgrund f?r att f?rh?lla sig till inkludering respektive exkludering p? sin arbetsplats inom IT-branschen? Teori: F?r att besvara fr?gest?llningarna har vi anv?nt oss av teorier om interaktionsritualer, emotionell energi, etablerade och outsiders samt begreppen intersektionalitet och assimilering. Metod: Kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomf?rts f?r att samla in data. Datan har sedan kategoriserats i relevanta teman och underteman f?r att vidare analyseras med hj?lp av teori.

This thesis compares different methods for risk assessment of a creosote contaminated site in Vansbro, Dalarna. In a complementary study the importance of using representative data for calibration and validation of stationary groundwater models is discussed. The time dependency between surface water levels and groundwater levels on the site in Vansbro is evaluated by step response analysis. The results show that the groundwater levels reflect only long-term variation in the surface water levels. Hence the use of such long-term means for calibration and validation of the stationary groundwater models is the only theoretically defendable alternative.As a first step in the comparison of risk assessment methods the degree of contamination is evaluated on the basis of generic guideline values for contaminated soils, developed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Today there is still irrelevant pay differential in society. In Sweden in 2010, the average pay differential was 15,4 percent between the sexes. Only 0,8 percent better than EU:s average.In Sweden the individual salaries increasingly have begun to characterize the Swedish labor market. Based on this, the aim of this study is to highlight the issue of equal pay between men and women from the perspective of individual salary. This would also been doing with a background in the regulatory environment of equal pay.When it comes to equality between women and men it is the area of labor law in EU who is the most developed and in Sweden this is the area who is most affected by EU law.

Relevansen av genus inom utvecklingsdiskursen är något som envist påpekats sedan en lång tid tillbaka. Idag betraktas jämställdhet som en av de högst prioriterade målsättningarna för västerländska biståndsgivare och redan 1995 fastslog OECD att jämställdhet var en huvudsaklig förutsättning för all utveckling.I denna uppsats granskas de policys avseende jämställdhet såsom de föreskrivs i OECDs officiella uttalanden. Utifrån dessa stadgor identifieras de diskursiva antaganden och underliggande uppfattningar om jämställdhet genom diskurs- och textanalys. Det är i första hand sättet som ojämställdhet representeras som ett politiskt problem som är av intresse inom denna studie. Särskild uppmärksamhet ägnas därför till sättet som policyföreskrifterna medverkar i konstituerandet av problemställningarna som de avser adressera.

The Dark Side of the Word-of-Mouse Effect- An experimental study of how negative information in today?s social media can influence consumer perception As a result of the electronic revolution of information dissemination, social media as a phenomenon has come to play an important part, both in society at large but also when it comes to business and marketing. Nowadays, knowledge and opinions about brands and products are spread by reputation through a wide range of social media platforms, a phenomenon which in the literature is referred to as word-of-mouse or electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).The purpose of this paper is to investigate how people?s opinions towards a company and its product are affected by negative information in terms of eWOM. Or more precisely, whether or not there is a difference in this effect depending on information content, concerning company values on the one hand and product attributes on the other.This was done in an experimental setting where two groups of respondents were subjected to fictitious information of different types using established social media platforms.

Our aim is to create a greater understanding for how Växjö Municipality is working with their vision, strategy and brand, and also how it is perceived by the business sector. This understanding will help us to highlight success factors and pitfalls that exist in the creation, implementation, and maintenance of a municipality?s identity, image and profile to convince the business sector to follow.Methodology: We have been using an abductive and qualitative research-method in which semi-structured interviews have been the basis of our empirical material. We had interviews with three employees, a communication manager and the mayor at Växjö Municipality as well as four organizations and two companies with sustainable focus. We did this to get different perspectives and thereby get a greater understanding.Analysis & conclusion: We have been able to identify both success factors and pitfalls in Växjö Municipality's strategic sustainability work.