Coping theory asks what the cognitive and behavioral patterns of individuals dealing with stress are. This essay includes, besides the perspective of the psychology of religion, theories of culture and ritual in exploring two Swedes coping with the natural disaster in Thailand year 2004. The vacation paradise was struck by an enormous flood wave, called a tsunami, causing vast destruction and the death of over 200.000 people. Among these 543 were Swedes on vacation. When a disaster of such measures happens, what kind of stress does it cause? How do you cope? Are religion and ritual important? What is the function of the culture in the copingprocess? Using hermeneutical analysis this essay interprets the material from two books by Swedes, who not only experienced the disaster, but lost two children and husband and wife in the flood wave.

Close to the city center of Reykjavik lies the combined national- and university library of Iceland. Usually, these two types of institutions are separated. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the library in fact selects the new digital material to offer the users in Iceland, and if the combined mission creates any problems or conflicts.The investigation examines the planning and the content of the digital library, what user groups are addressed and how the organisation is held together despite the different missions. If cultural context in Iceland makes a difference for what is selected and offered to the users is also discussed.Six informants in strategic library positions dealing with the digital national- or university library, were interviewed. The answers have been analysed in light of the library&information literature on building and maintaining digital library collections and organizational and marketing theory.The main result of the study is that the informants do not see a conflict between the missions of the organisation, although traces of a struggle were found in some areas.

Building on the concept of constructive iconoclasm as a creational force of iconicity, this thesis examines how the contemporary iconoclastic discourse is related to artistic process. Studies have shown that the performative act of destroying art that is an historical phenomenon is highly present within the contemporary art discourse today. Due to the many dimensions of contemporary art, the ways in which iconoclastic deeds appear may differ from the historical narrative. While iconoclasm and iconicity are being reciprocal processes that can only exist in relation to each other and their context, there are signs that the destructive act itself is being recontextualized by contemporary artists. Guided by the framework of Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis, the thesis examines the processes of conceptual and constructive art destruction by analyzing the discourses of two case studies situated in the contemporary art market.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the perception of value and risk in CSR as well as analyzing how financial institutions influence responsible behavior in business in order to create sustainable economic growth.Methodology: The study has a qualitative research method used by an abductive process. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from three venture capital companies and three banks. The sample of respondents was done through a convenience sample with respect to access and expertise in the research area.Conclusion: The most important meanings of the research results have shown that CSR holds an intrinsic value concerning contributing value as its conceptual meaning in terms of sustainable development. CSR can also be regarded as a dimension of risk management to reduce the risk of negative externalities on corporate activities. Investors and financiers contribute to sustainable companies through active ownership and improvements in the CSR dimensions.

The aim of this qualitative study of service work in the private sector is to examine how the service worker experiences his/her work. There are three dimensions of the service workers experience in focus, and they are the base of my formulation of questions. The first dimension refers to how the service worker experiences the emotional labor demands from the employer. The second dimension concerns the relation between service worker and customer, from the view of the service worker. The third dimension problematizes how service workers experience efficiency.I have interviewed three call center customer workers and two hotel receptionists, using semi-structured interview technique.

The ?peer to peer? (P2P) is a technology of downloading and filesharing between online - Internet - users by the mean of specified software. Since June 1999, the Napster software has made the happiness of millions of individuals who used it to obtain and share free audio files Mp3. Rapidly, the major recording companies have prosecuted the Napster Company and managed to force it to close down. They were arguing against it for it is supporting the development on a large scale traffic of files protected by copyright and thus was threatening the whole music and movies economic world.

The contemporary angel-symbol is deeply rooted in our cultural history, with connotations and implications leading to that inner transitional space where all creative activity takes place. This essay investigates the history of the depiction of angels, visions of angels both ancient and modern, and includes psychological aspects of symbols as such. A closer look at surrounding symbols of angels will hopefully result in a greater understanding of the role of the angel-symbol within the context of visual culture, seen in the light of our own symbolic universe..

Denna uppsats problematiserar huruvida en ledares kulturella bakgrund påverkar dennes arbete. I ett allt mer internationaliserat Europa ökar samarbeten mellan människor och företag över de nationella gränserna i en ökande takt. Detta ställer krav på de ledare som skall samarbeta och samordna över nationella och kulturella gränser. Denna studie problematiserar det interkulturella ledarskapet och hur ledare ställer sig till frågor angående anpassning och samarbete. Då det framgår av Hofstede att stora skillnader finns mellan Sverige och Frankrike syftar denna studie till att undersöka hur svenska- och franska ledares nationella och kulturella bakgrunder påverkar deras arbetsroll.Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur svenska och franska ledares interkulturella erfarenheter påverkar deras arbetsroll.

The culture center studied has gone from being organized by enthusiasts and ideals, to being institutionalized with a educational association responsible for the management. The questions discussed are ? how this change affects the active people in the house and what consequences these changes make for the institution of the house and for the regular management..

Abstract The purpose of this essay is to compare in what way pedagogues in pre-school in comparison to pedagogues in school use music as an implement to stimulate children?s language development. The essay is built on qualitative written interviews on four pedagogues, two pre-school teachers and two class teachers, along with relevant literature concerning music in relation to language development.In the interviews it was shown that music is used in a greater extent by the pre-school teachers, compared to the class teachers. Activities containing elements of music is situated on a daily basis in preschool, where the two interviewed pre-school teacher?s works.

In society and school today there is a major focus on assessment, and this can for example be seen in an increased research on assessment over the last ten years. But one research topic still quite unexplored is how students perceive assessment. The main purpose with this study is to explore students? experiences of assessment, how assessment interferes with their volition and if the extent of the impact on the motivation varies depending on how the assessment is performed. In order to answer these questions a quantitative investigation was performed at first. 83 students answered a questionnaire about what kind of assessment they experience in school, if they receive feedback, what is important for being successful in school, if they know on what grounds they are assessed, what impact failure and/or success has on their motivation, if they are stressed by school etc.

This thesis deals with the issues of participation and influence in the multicultural society. The aim with the study is twofold, first to identify determinants improving participation and influence in this context, and second to see if the ecouragement of a strong civil society in ethnic segregated areas is a possible way forward to a multicultural democracy. This is conducted through a case study of brobyggarna in Malmo, Sweden, and how they as an integration policy is working with these questions. Six qualitative interviews have been conducted with seven persons workning as brobyggare or in close connection with them. Toghether with readings of earlier research this material is analysed through an eclectic model with theories put together in five analythic dimensions, Multicultural democracy, Social milieu, Unequal possibillities to participate and influence and Local powerstructures.

The contents of the school subject religion in Sweden, has gone through a radical change during the past century. With an origin of only treating Christianity and being a major cultural and social actor, it has developed into more of a multicultural and philosophical subject. The fact that the subject no longer has cultural recognition makes it more abstract and harder for students to relate to. Additionally, religion is experienced as a rather dull subject in school. My essay is therefore written to provide teachers encouragement of interest for religious education, by using humor. The well-known psychologist Jean Piaget claims play to be a prime state of learning.

This report is the result of a thesis as been implemented during the spring term 2009 atthe University of Gävle.The company Bruks produces mobile chippers which are used for chipping loggingslash, roundwood and parts of trees. The chipper is powered by a separate diesel engineand the chipper can be assembled on trucks, trailers or some other carrier vehicles.When the chip has passed the chipper drum, the chip is collected in an integrated binwhich is mounted on the vehicles frame with dumping yokes. When these dumpingyokes were designed they were probably created with large material dimensions. Theaim with the degree project is hence to study the strengths of materials and, if possible,to suggest an arrangement that can decrease the total weight on the dumping yoke onBruks´ mobile chippers 805 CT.The CAD-program Pro/ENGINEER was used during the project for outlining the 2Ddrawings,as distributed of constructors on Bruks, to solid 3D-parts. The three-dimensionalassembly from Pro/ENGINEER was transferred to Pro/MECHANICA.

Research where personality in animals is studied is becoming more and more common. In this area there are different concepts like behavioural syndrome and animal personality and they usually talk about consistency in behaviour over time and situations. This consistent individual behaviour can be used as an indicator of how individuals can handle and adjust to new situations in the environment. Because of this, personality studies in animals are very important in animal welfare. In this study personality in dairy cattle in lose housing were studied.