The problem of separating a non-rectangular foreground image from a background image is a classical problem in image processing and analysis, known as matting or keying. A common example is a film frame where an actor is extracted from the background to later be placed on a different background. Compositing of these objects against a new background is one of the most common operations in the creation of visual effects. When the original background is of non-constant color the matting becomes an under determined problem, for which a unique solution cannot be found. This thesis describes a framework for computing mattes from images with backgrounds of non-constant color, using Bayesian statistics.

What kind of international actor is the European Union and how shall we define it? These are questions that many have tried to answer often by addressing the apparent uniqueness of the EU itself. One of these theories is Normative power Europe. A theory whose main argument is that the EU is best perceived as a changer of norms. My aim with this thesis is to test this claim and to see if the Union should be regarded as a normative power.

In 1989 the United States choose, after years of conflict, to carry out a military intervention in Panama, to remove Manuel Noriega, convicted for drug dealing and for threatening the lives of the Americans living in Panama. The aim of this study is to examine whether George H. W Bush?s arguments for the military intervention comply with the principles of the just war.The method chosen for this study is a qualitative literature study, based primarily on secondary data. It is a case study with two complementing theories, the theory of the just war and the world system theory.The result showed that the American intervention both can be justified and unjustified following the principles of the Just War Theory.

Syftet med denna litteraturöversikt är att göra en utvärdering över de mekanismer som är viktiga vid tumörmetastasers nybildning av kärl s.k. angiogenes och med vilka metoder man kan hindra dem. Tumörceller som prolifererar ohämmat utan att stimulera angiogenes begränsas av brist på näring och ineffektiv bortförsel av slaggprodukter och kan därför sällan växa och bli större än cirka 1mm. Detta medför att även om det kliniskt finns många små metastaser i en patient så innebär det sällan något problem för patienten. Om tumörcellerna däremot muterar så att de kan stimulera angiogenes så tillåts tumörerna växa sig större och förstör då kringliggande vävnad vilket tillslut resulterar i patientens död. Mycket forskning görs i nuläget inom ämnesområdet och man har som mål att med hjälp av angiogeneshämmare göra cancer till en kronisk men hanterbar sjukdom istället för den sjukdom med dödlig utgång som den ofta är idag. Den första angiogeneshämmaren som godkändes för medicinskt bruk i USA var Avastin (Bevacizumab) som är en antikropp som binder till och oskadliggör vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), vilket är en av de faktorer som stimulerar angiogenes. Detta får som följd att de tumörer (60 % av alla humana) som uttrycker denna faktor hämmas i sin tillväxt.

 Becoming an adoptive parent is not always easy. There are positive and negative factors affecting the parent?s experience. The aim of this study is to examine being an adoptive parent to an internationally adopted child based on association, parenthood and ethnic belonging. Frame of interpretation consists of attachment and separations, parenthood and family and ethnic origin and belonging.

The purpose of this study was to try to understand the Swedish population regarding the perceptions of the Swedish welfare system, based on the reactions that occurred after Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's statement about raising the retirement age. Our results demonstrate that the reactions on changes in the pension system in fact rooted in a safety factor and not the change in the pension system itself, through which the Swedish welfare system acts as a safety net for the population. Further the results shows that these safety factors create a form of egoism. With an interaction between empiricism and theory, where the starting point of the material was of an inductive approach, the material abstracted into different levels from which the result emerged. The focus of this study lies in the understanding of how human beings act according to one's need for security in major changes, which may be of importance to a comprehensive understanding of changes in social structures..

The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of profitability and capital structure in Swedish quoted companies during the period of 1990 to 2004. Further, the aim is to determine the relationship between profitability and leverage in order to conclude whether the choice of capital structure supports the pecking order theory or the trade-off theory of capital structure. The findings show that return on assets fluctuates between 3 and 11 percent and that return on equity fluctuates between 3 and 22 percent during the period. Further, the leverage and the cost of debt have decreased. This indicates lowered financial risk in Swedish quoted companies in the period between 1990 and 2004.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a difference between the respondent groups preparers and non-preparers position in IASBs question if a reversal of previously impaired goodwill should be prohibited. The background is an exposure draft sent out by the IASB and we examine the answers, in form of comment letters, sent in by the respondents to reach our purpose. Our method is positivistic in the sense that we study already existing theories when we create our hypothesis which gives our assumption about how the result of the respondent?s answers will be. Our data, which we have collected from the comment letters, is qualitative secondary data.

Gender balance within the business administration field at university level is an area that has gained increased attention in the last decade. As gender balance contributes positively to the scientific and educational achievements within all disciplines, many studies have tried to understand the decision-making processes of students when selecting a business specialisation. However, little attention has been devoted to the finance discipline although there is a remaining gender imbalance within the field at higher-level economic studies. This thesis was performed as a qualitative case study and is based on interviews with second-year bachelor students facing their choice of specialisation at the Stockholm School of Economics. Through an application of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), this study aims to examine factors that influence female business students' intentions to choose a specialisation.

Background: Sporting events conveyed by the TV medium affect people and can give many unforgettable experiences. Sport may be synonymous with excitement and drama or just serve as entertainment. Through TV broadcasts from different sporting events, millions of televiewers all over the world have enjoyed athletic feats of extreme top class. TV broadcast sport always attracts a great number of viewers, also in Sweden. The prices of broadcasting rights to sporting events have risen strongly during the last decade, much as a consequence of the increasing competition between different TV companies both internationally and in Sweden.

This study aims to show how teachers talk about their teaching with regards to gender in relation to literature.We have interviewed four teachers of Swedish for upper secondary school to discover how they feel about, and understand, the fact that gender is a factor in the teaching of literature and that they should present to the students literature written by both male and female authors. To analyze the interviews we use Sannersted's (1991) theory about teachers as street-level-bureaucrats ("närbyråkrater"). He states that teachers are persons who have to follow what politicians have decided but they are fairly free to choose how they do it, but to be able to follow a decision as closely as possible three qualifications have to be met. The teachers have to understand the decision, be able to follow it and want to follow it. We find that the teachers that we have interviewed are aware that they discuss gender issues with their students and they all claim that they present a variation of authors to their students.

Our main purpose with this paper was to figure out what makes a magazine successful. We wanted to analyze and examine factors of success for magazines, with a focus on music magazines, from a marketing perspective. Also, we wanted to see specific factors of success for the music magazine Groove. To do this, we interviewed seven people from different areas within the business with different kinds of expertise. We interviewed two people from Groove Magazine, two people from other music magazines and in addition to this, two people from a grand publishing company and also one person from a soccer magazine.

ABSTRACT: Introduction: There are intentions from the Swedish government to provide guidelines and tools for a healthy social planning. The field is in a Swedish context relatively unstudied regarding psychosocial health and the neighbourhood. Aim: The study aimed to examine how social planning can affect the health of individuals. The focus areas were contextual and compositional factors related to individuals' psychosocial health and the contextual risk- and health factors that exist in the neighbourhood. Method: A literature-based study was conducted and 15 scholarly articles form the basis for analyse.

This study aims to investigate how value is constructed in horse business, in order to increase knowledge and contribute to development of theory in this field. This is important since the horse plays a significant role in the rural development in Sweden. The study assumes that value is something created through relationships in the social network. Therefore theories of sensemaking are combined with a discourse analytic method. By interviewing customers to two companies, one with orientation on trotting horses and one with orientation on showjumping horses, it was found that value is constructed through retrospective stories.

The purpose of this study was to do a narrative survey of the discussion about violence in partner relationships that is held in research literature. The question at issue was: How do research literature discuss violence in partner relationships, with focus on heterosexual relationships? The eight primary documents that have been chosen are written by researchers, professional therapists, National Counsil for Women's protection (Nationellt Råd för Kvinnofrid, NRK) and Swedish Government Official Report (Statens Offentliga Utredningar, SOU). To investigate the theories, discover the similarities and differences between them and how they can complement each other, the documents statements has been analyzed with a dialectic-hermeneutic approach and social constructionism and discourse theory.The research findings showed that the gender perspective theory, the psychodynamic theory and the social psychology theory have a few things in common, but that they on the whole are different and contradict each other. The gender perspective theory dominates the discussion but needs to be combined with the other theories to give a more all-embracing understanding.