The aim of this Master?s Thesis is to study readers and authors of Harry Potter fan fiction, in order to answer the question of why they read and write fan fiction about Harry Potter, and which factors determine what kind of fan fiction stories they read. The empirical material consists of three qualitative interviews with fan fiction readers and authors, and a textual analysis of four internet forums for discussions about Harry Potter and fan fiction. The theoretical background is based on reception theory and reader-response criticism. The results show, that commitment to, and interest in, the source material is an important reason as to why the participants of the study read and write Harry Potter fan fiction.

One of many difficult issues in veterinary medicine is the assessment of an animal's experience of pain. As a licensed veterinary nurse in Sweden you are obligated by law to work by the concept of evidence based medicine. To achieve this the author of this study sees the need for standardized methods of pain assessment. A Swedish version of Short form of the Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS-SF) has recently been translated and developed. Furthermore, a psychometric validation needs to be performed to ensure its validity and reliability.

This thesis is a study of residential environments and a design concept for a proposed housing area in Tierp. The industrial era created a need for the central planning of housing. The confined environments that arised in cities during the 19th century, together with modernistic and democratic ideas, led to regulations in planning and housing. Though the overall goal has been the same: to create a good standard in living, the ideas of how to achieve that have varied. The starting point for following generations has been to attend to the insufficiencies of the earlier planning periods.

This study will focus on how patients that suffer from self-injurious behaviours experience the relation between their self and body according to some professionals. The purpose is to enlighten why a person who has mental problems chooses to injure his or her body. We believe that the reason behind this is based on the early attachment between the parent and child. We also believe that a person only continues with this behaviour if he or she gains from it. The research questions this study raises are:· How does a person with self-injurious behaviour experience the relationship between their body and their self?· What is the effect of self-injurious behaviour on the body and what is the effect on the relationship between their body and their self.· How did the relationship between body and self evolve?This study is qualitative and is based on interviews from our respondents of whom all work or have worked with self-injurious behavioural patients.

Background: Last year (2006) has been a year when the environmental issues figured more often in the media, and the environmental awareness among common people increased. Environmental climate reports have lately been on the headline all over the world. As a result of the increasing population in the world, it?s becoming more important to be aware of the environment. To do that, it is important to maximize the efficiency in the work with the environment.

The Swedish language has for over six hundred years been under influence of foreign languages. Nowadays, it is the English language that undoubtedly affects it in largest scale - even though both French and especially German have had a serious influence through history. In an inquiry by behalf of the Swedish Government, named Mål i mun ? förslag till handlingsprogram för svenska språket (2002), one of the conclusions was that journalism is an important area that has to be under linguistic supervision to avoid a gradual weakening of the Swedish language. It is also a known fact that the Swedish sports writers has a tendency to use a lot of English words, even though there are equivalent Swedish ones applicable.

This study focuses on the use of animals in social work from the perspective of social workers. The purpose of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of animal assisted social work and how social workers view the integration of animals in various fields of social work. The research is based on a qualitative method and four semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers. The theories incorporated in the study are Attachment Theory and Sense of Coherence (SOC).The following results are presented: Social workers are considered to have a more comprehensive understanding of clients compared to their associates who do not hold a degree in Social Work.

?Bland betygskrav och centrala innehåll?En undersökning av hur LGR-11 påverkar bedömning och undervisningens innehåll."Among rating requirements and core content"An examination of  how the LGR 11 affects the assessment and teaching content. Syftet med den här undersökningen är att få en fördjupad förståelse av innevarande kursplanen i bild och den innebörd den får i lärares dagliga arbete i bildsalen, främst när det gäller bedömning. Syftet är dessutom att undersökningen kan vara till hjälp för att säkerställa att formulera uppgifter och bedöma dem enligt Lgr11:s kursplan i bild.I undersökningen studeras vad styrdokumenten och bedömningsstöden som Skolverket gav ut i samband med sjösättningen av Lgr11 säger om hur bedömning och undervisningens innehåll ska se ut. I studien undersöks skillnaderna mellan Lpo94 och Lgr11:s kursplaner genom en jämförande textanalys och bearbetas med hjälp av litteratur inom området. Studien har inriktats på grundskolans senare år, och det är kursplanerna i bild för årskurs 7-9 har undersökts.Studiens resultat visar bland annat på att vad som ska studeras har tydligare skrivits fram i den senare kursplanen.

In this dissertation I explore the mariological writings of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Thoughthe saint?s mariology is one which has been extensively analyzed and expounded upon by a widearray of theologians especially coming out of the Franciscan tradition of which Kolbe himself waspart, it has rarely been theologically examined outside of a Roman Catholic dogmatic perspective,something I here aim to remedy by adapting the saint?s writings to newer and perhaps unorthodoxmeans of approaching mariology. This latter approach comprises what I term a femininepneumatological mariology.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 have done more to focus attention on the conjunction of religion and conflict than any other event in recent history. Although much international research has focused since then on the role of Islam, religiously inspired violence is also found in countries as diverse as Thailand, Burma, or Sri Lanka, where Buddhism plays a central role. This paper addresses how these realities are reflected in two Swedish high school textbooks on religion. The thesis calls into question the manner in which Buddhism is presented in schoolbooks as the most probable candidate to be a conflict-free religion.Using Fairclough?s discourse analysis theoretical framework and Hellspong?s structural analysis, the thesis critically examines the relationship between text, the discourse practice in which text is produced and the wider social practices.

As of today, securitization is an established product on the capital market. The first transaction was made in the US in the 1970s. Since then the product has been developed and today there are several different structures of the product. Internationally securitization has been used for two reasons. Originally securitization was used to gain capital relief, but since capital requirements such as Basel II were implemented, the usage of securitization changed to more of a funding source.

GPGPU is a collective term for research involving general computation on graphics cards. A modern graphics card typically provides more than ten times the computational power of an ordinary PC processor. This is a result of the high demands for speed and image quality in computer games.This thesis investigates the possibility of exploiting this computational power for image processing purposes. Three well known methods where implemented on a graphics card: FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), KLT (Kanade Lucas Tomasi point tracking) and the generation of scale pyramids. All algorithms where successfully implemented and they are tree to ten times faster than correspondning optimized CPU implementation..

SyfteSyftet med studien var att översätta och validera skattningsskalan för tränarbeteenden Coaching Behavior Scale for Sport (CBS-S) från engelska till svenska.MetodSammanlagt ingick 545 deltagare fördelade på två urval. Deltagarna var lagidrottare i de två högsta nationella serierna. Deltagarna besvarade en enkät innehållandes CBS-S och skalor för andra tränarbeteenden, motivation, självförtroende och relationen med tränaren. På datamaterialet utfördes explorativ faktoranalys med varimax rotering och korrelationer mellan de olika dimensionerna i skalorna beräknades. 39 av deltagarna besvarade även CBS-S två gånger och på dessa data beräknades test-retestkorrelationer mellan dimensionerna i CBS-S.ResultatFaktoranalysen fann åtta dimensioner med egenvärde > 1.

This thesis primarily includes a study on whether companies can develop a mathematical activity that supports students' motivation in mathematics. The work was done together with Midroc Electro, a company that pays attention to the difficulty of recruiting and therefore was interested in investigating how the business world would be able to contribute.The thesis can be divided into three stages. The first part comprised by a exploration into research on student motivation regarding mathematics as well as numerous interviews with engineers to see how the research findings did fit with Midroc Electros reality. In these studies it became clear that the student who aims for a profession whose education or work requires math belongs to the group of students who primarily manage their studies in mathematics, that is, those that have the greatest motivation to work hard and complete their studies.Research information and interviews were compared and resulted in the thesis second part, Midroc Challenge. An activity where students primarily came to learn about the engineering profession and secondly how mathematics can be used in the engineering profession.

This study focuses on the use of animals in social work from the perspective of social workers. The purpose of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of animal assisted social work and how social workers view the integration of animals in various fields of social work. The research is based on a qualitative method and four semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers. The theories incorporated in the study are Attachment Theory and Sense of Coherence (SOC).The following results are presented: Social workers are considered to have a more comprehensive understanding of clients compared to their associates who do not hold a degree in Social Work.