This study is about trust for public institutions and what the foundation is that builds this confidence. For this study I have used three dependent variables to define different aspects of public institutions. These are trust in the legal system, trust in political parties and state of health services nowadays.  The method that is used in the study is based on a comparative study between two countries, Sweden and Portugal.  The actual result is made up by comparing means and regressions by using 13 independent variables. Many of the independent variables that has been used is deriving from institutional theories of Putnam and Rothstein These theories points out the importance of strong traditions of civic engagement and that the success of the trust of the institutions depends in large part on the horizontal bonds that make up social capital.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the base of sociology from an existentialistic perspective. The discussion takes it's position in the debate on the crisis of sociology, and aligns with Alvin Gouldner's understanding of the crisis. Gouldner believed that the crisis of sociology was mirrored in a sociological method that failed to describe the social reality that it meant to describe; a lack in self-criticism and self-reflexivity, a lack in self-containment in relation to state interests and a lack in moral engagement. This raises a number of questions, which I discuss in the essay. What is the role of sociology in our society? How shall we form a method that responds to the social reality that we sociologists aim to describe? How can we make sociology more moral?Existentialism offers a starting point to describe these questions.

This is a case study of the advertising campaign ?Guld till alla? (Gold to Everyone) embarked upon by Spendrups Bryggeri AB in a bid to promote Norrlands Guld, during the period 2004. The approach used by Spendrups will be compared with theories about communication planning, communication strategies, target group definition and how to create effective advertising. The main purpose of the comparison is to find which central elements that made the campaign successful. The method we have chosen to use is an explanative content analysis with influences from the dialogue analyse.?Guld till alla? was suppose to be an massive and coherent campaign which was to be integrated with large sports events, such as the Ice Hockey World Championship, UEFA European Championship and the Summer Olympic Games, that all took place the year 2004.

Ruins and derelict places have since long fascinated and attracted humans. With my starting point in the wild vegetation and the spontaneous activities taking place on derelict land and in industrial ruins, I explore with help from the theoretical sociology, what creates not only this fascination but also fear. The purpose of the thesis is to explore and exemplify how the industrial ruin as a place outside the restrictions and control as well as design intentions of modern society can be used as an inspiration in a landscape architecture context.The modern city consists of areas and places with a well defined purpose. A piece of derelict land or a disused building is instead ambiguous, undefined and open for new purposes. However described in negative terms, these placesare often perceived as places of mystery and magic.

Organizational democracy has been a popular research area in recent decades but the implementation in real organizations is slow (Kokkinidis, 2012; Verdorfer, Weber, Unter Rainer & Seyr, 2013). Several researchers (Schön Jansson, 2012; Falkheimer, Heide & Johansson, 2013) argue that communication practitioners have a key role in democratic processes and that because their job role is under constant change there are only a few modern studies regarding the subject. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how communication practitioners in private and public organizations experience their role in the process of internal communication and to what extent they are aware of, and work with internal organizational democracy.The practitioners we interviewed had a strong feeling that they were a support function for the business and the organizational management. As a result of the study it is clear that communication practitioners are very loyal to their employers and to the organization they work for. They are, therefore, not neutral in their professional role and argue that their task is to represent the management's interests.

In year 2009, a new housing form (here referred to as "owned apartments", in Swedish called "ägarlägenheter") was introduced in Sweden. Owned apartments are in many countries the dominating form of housing tenure, but in Stockholm, to where this thesis is delimited, only four have been established in four years. There are many possible reasons for this low establishment, but the thesis writers believe the main reason to be that the owned apartment is situated in an organizational gap. With the hypothesis that the owned apartment is situated in an organizational gap and that there are opportunities to overcome this gap through interorganizational collaboration of the players on the market, this thesis strives towards examining if this is the case.By using Burt's theory of structural holes the concept of organizational gaps are elaborated to fit this context, since this area is previously unexplored.The data has mainly been gathered through in-depth interviews but also through secondary sources such as previous theses and newspaper articles. It has appeared that the majority of the central players are characterized by conservatism.

The purpose of this essay is to critically review Pierre Bourdieus contribution to agency ? structure debate. I will do this with help from the thinking of George Herbert Mead. My aim is to show that Mead can provide valuable knowledge to Bourdieus theory.Pierre Bourdieus notion of habitus is his solution to the dilemma between agency and structure. It is in the habitus that the objective structures meet the inner, subjective structures and this results in various actions.

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

Detection of leukocytes in semen from boars is part of the routine control of semen quality. Leukocytes in semen can cause damage to spermatozoa that leads to impaired fertilization. In the artificial insemination (AI) industry there are standard routines for the quality control of the boars and of the neat semen before use. Since 2001, Quality Genetics has not done the leukocyte examination on semen samples from boars which are used for the production of pigs for slaughter. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of leukocytes in semen from AI-boars. The questions addressed were whether there are boars that have leukocytes in their semen and how frequently it occurs and, moreover, if there are differences between breeds, or even between individuals whose semen was checked before use in AI-dose production compared to those which were not. The study included a total of 135 AI-boars, of which 67 were Hampshire, 35 Yorkshire and 33 Landrace, all belonging to Quality Genetics AI-station in Hållsta.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the success of theconcept of empowerment in the field of social science can be explained by referring to it as the new paradigm replacing the former paternalistic era. Therefore, I investigate if the character of its history, domicile and practice has the same distinguishing features as the scientific progress. The analysis is based on Thomas Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm through the concepts of consensus, crisis and revolution. I also look for alternative ways to explain the sudden appearance of empowerment at the world agenda. Due to the lack of a uniform definition of the concept and the absence of common approaches in the stimulation of empowerment it's difficult to argue that the situation is marked by consensus.

Horse keeping is gaining an increasing interest in Sweden. During 2004 to 2010 the number of horses increased with 10 - 20 %, and was estimated to be 362 700 in 2010. Julmyra Horse Center (JHC), situated in Heby municipality, is a gated community for people sharing a large interest for horses and a vision of a sustainable horse management has been formulated. This study evaluates how the horse keeping of today at JHC, and how an expansion of the horse keeping may affect the risk of enhanced phosphorus load to the nearby lake system Vansjön ? Nordsjön.

The objective of this research is to unveil how respective teacher consider about the laboratory working methods in mathematics. The research even includes answers to questions such as, what approaches and attitudes the teachers have and the methods they use when instructing their students when teaching mathematics, what the materials used by the teachers are and how important working creatively is to help the students develop their logical thinking. I also looked into issues that can help understand how and why teachers use laboratory mathematics for students in young ages. As a conclusion the research showed that the teachers aim to the goal that includes helping the students understand mathematics, strengthen their logical thinking and creativity.In the method section qualitative data was used, which contained four interviews with different pedagogues that daily interact with students in elementary school. The reasons for using the method of qualitative data was to help me deeper understand and answer the specific questions I had to the pedagogues and to even compare how different pedagogues differ in their approaches and methods.

In the prison of Kumla, Sweden`s highest security classified institution, spiritual retreats are pursued since 2001. The aim is to offer the inmates a possibility to enter deeply into spiritual contemplation. This spiritual contemplation is made possible through the fact that the prisoners carry out a retreat designed after guidelines written by Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. The purpose of this examination is to study how ordinary institutional life in comparison to monastic life defines and creates different attitudes and roles amongst the inmates. A secondary aim is to describe the consequences of the retreat on individual basis.

AbstractTitleOwnership apartments - The success that got lostDate of seminar2011-05-27Course/ProgramBachelor thesis/Construction and Real Estate Business ProgrammeAuthorsAnna ÅbergMarie Louise Homayon NejadMentorSven-Ola CarlssonExaminerGunnar WramsbyBackgroundThe 1st of May 2009 the government introduced a new accommodation form called ownership apartments. The government´s intensions were to give the individuals more influence in their housing, to increase the variety of accommodation and thereby create a freedom of choice when selecting their housing. They also saw opportunities to reduce segregation and increase the total production of houses and or apartments with this new type of ownership. The introduction was supposed to give the building companies a possibility to build with a new type of ownership and thereby create new and an increased number of projects for the future. This new accommodation form has however not gained the penetrating power that was expected.

The connection between body, soul and social surroundings and their influence on health has, in the western world, been known for over a hundred years. The hospital social worker with tasks within the area of the psychosocial perspective is therefore now a part of Swedish healthcare. Yet both international as well as national research and literature show that social workers have a slow professionalizationprocess and difficulties describing their area of tasks and methods. This study aims to explore hospital social workers line of work, what they believe becomes help in their work with patients and put results in relation to professionalization in the medical environment. The results are problematized from perspectives like professionality, power and role.The study includes 86 hospital social workers at Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset in Gothenburg Sweden and it contains both quantitative and qualitative parts.