Hedge funds? importance within the financial system has during the most recent years increased dramatically. These special funds are unique instruments that differ from traditional mutual funds in a variety of ways, however especially in how they expect returns. Due to the fact that hedge funds are able to hold short positions they possess the possibility to become market neutral investment vehicles.Because of this possibility to sustain positions neutral to market fluctuations, the concept of absolute returns became a unique selling point for hedge fund managers and promises of stable returns unchallenged by market conditions was assured. This research paper aims to examine the theory of absolute returns in hedge funds by examining hedge funds from the Nordic region during the last years of economic turmoil that has occurred by  analyzing the results from their strategies, partially by quantitative measurements as well as qualitative.  The results show that none of hedge fund strategies managed to deliver absolute returns over the chosen period..

Semantic feature analysis (SFA) is a treatment technique used foraphasic word finding difficulties after stroke. The method has earlier beenevaluated with positive outcome regarding words that have been trainedduring intervention while more varied results have been presented regardinguntrained words. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the effectsof the method on naming in untrained nouns and verbs, in both confrontationnaming and in discourse. The present study is the first to evaluate SFA withSwedish-speaking persons. A single-subject design was used.

Research in the field of gaming and the gaming culture shows that the culture is characterized by sexism and hypermasculinity, however a majority of this research is conducted in an Anglo-Saxon context. Therefore the aim of this study was to elucidate the Swedish gaming discourse in relation to gender, gendered norms and stereotypes. We also sought to examine the relationship between the editorial content and the blog comments. The study was based on a critical discourse analysis with a gender perspective, applied to five Swedish gaming blogs. By implementing power theory and encoding/decoding theory, we have concluded that there is a discursive struggle, where one part of the gaming culture is characterized by male dominance, while the other part of the discourse is showing signs of resistance to this hypermasculinity.

AbstractThis essay is based on a qualitative and quantitative study. We have compared history textbooks on an upper secondary level and how the books handle the Soviet Union. This study is done in Växjö as a region. Furthermore we also made interviews with upper secondary teachers and forms with upper secondary students. Our study of the textbooks has been ranges within the period from 1917 until 2009: we choose the year 1917 because the Soviet revolution started at the former date.

This essay focuses on the relationship between Islam, secularism, girls and sexuality. These categories problematize gender and how it affects identity processes of young women with a Muslim background. Sexuality is especially emphasized. The Muslim background is placed in contrast to the prescribed norms and ideals of the Swedish society/context concerning gender, sexuality and identity and this essay analyses how young women create gender and identity and which possibilities and strategies they have and use to negotiate about space in the relationship to other people. A girls? relationship to her own and others? sexuality is precisely what makes her a girl, but more importantly, also to which kind of girl.

The aim of this thesis is to highlight how male and female characters are portrayed in children?s books, that have football as a theme, and are written for children between 9-12 years of age. I have chosen this subject so that I, as a pre-school teacher, can adhere to the curriculum?s aim of maintaining the school?s responsibility for counteracting traditional gender roles. I aim to study how gender is represented in literature for children.I shall apply Yvonne Hirdman?s theories on the gender system which is built on the principals whereby the sexes are separate entities and there is a structural hierarchy between them.

The aim of this study is to examine the existence of norms in three Spanish textbooks intended for upper secondary school in Sweden. One category of norms, gender norms, is selected for analysis. The focus of the analysis is on how gender norms are represented in the textbooks. The concept of gender also includes - in addition to the relation between man och woman - ethnicity, sexuality and disability. The three analysed textbooks are Caminando 3, Vistas 3 and El Sur paso 3.

The purpose of this essay is to examine formations of gender and class of so called horse girls in a riding school located in Stockholm, Sweden. The essay is based on interviews with six girls in the ages between fifthteen and eighteen. Through the theoretical framework of Judith Butler and Beverley Skeggs, I examine how the girls negotiate the boundaries and probabilities within doing gender in an upper and middleclass associated area. As a result of its female domination, the stable functions as a place where the girls can dislocate themselves from otherwise normative feminine practises. This is possible since the premises of the stable are constructed in the light of the heterosexual matrix, where the girls organise themselves within the heterosexual girl collective.

The purpose of this essay is to study how feminists portray themselves and their opinions about gender issues and other political matters in popular feminist blogs. The blogs that are studied are Lady Dahmer, Fanny Åström, Hanapee and Genusfolket. The overall essay questions are: How does the feminist bloggers present themselves? Which subjects are discussed in the feminist blogs? Which rhetorical devices does the feminist bloggers use? The theories that are used to answer the essay questions are the four spheres where there are inequality between the sexes, theories about third wave feminism, the rhetorical concepts ethos, logos and pathos and the SPADER-model for writing good argumentation. A descriptive method is used to study how the bloggers present themselves, a quantitative content analysis is used to count which subjects the bloggers write about and a qualitative rhetorical text analysis is used to study the rhetorical devices the bloggers use.The result shows that the two bloggers Lady Dahmer and Fanny Åström describe themselves with provocative words while the other blogs have more neutral descriptions.

Swedish studies concerning children?s reading habits show that detective stories have become more popular in recent years. The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine how the gender system is described in four detective stories written for children at the age of 9 to 13 years. Our main question is: How is the gender system reflected in the four selected detective stories for children? We also pose the question: How are femininity and masculinity described? Our study is based on three theories.

 In his book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982) Saul Kripke claims that Wittgenstein argues for a certain form of scepticism in his book Philosophical Investigations (1953), namely a new form of philosophical scepticism, a result of Wittgenstein´s idea of language as language games. Nihilism, scepticism of meaning or of concept, constitutive scepticism are other commentators´ different names of the same phenomenon. The philosophy of Wittgenstein accounts for how our words, including the words of mathematics, have no meaning and there are no a priori justified objective facts as to what I mean about a word. We follow the rules blindly and without justification. We are unable to find any facts against this proposal.

In this essay, I interview six users from the website darkside.se, which is an internet community for BDSM practitioners. I?m using Judith Butlers theorys about performativity and heteronormativity, Gayle Rubins model the charmed circle; of which sexualities is regarded as approved and which is not, and Fanny Ambjörnssons explenation of queer theory. With the interviews as my material, I investigate how sex and gender is produced and used in BDSM and at Darkside. I discuss trans, heteronormativity, sexism and hierarchies of power related to sex and gender, in BDSM and at Darkside.

The aim of the study learn about if the court assesses boys and girls on an equal basis, or if there are norms of gender constructed in society that appears in the Administrative Court of Appeal. And we want to find out how norms, in this field, are different between boys and girls. We used the judgments of the Administrative Court of Appeal and went through the descriptions of the girls and boys. What basis was used in the judgment of LVU, to do this, we used discourse analysis. We summarized all judgments and then described the outcome of each requirement in LVU, we categorized the results for three requirements, other socially destructive behavior, criminal activity and abuse.

AbstractThis essay is based on a qualitative and quantitative study. We have compared history textbooks on an upper secondary level and how the books handle the Soviet Union. This study is done in Växjö as a region. Furthermore we also made interviews with upper secondary teachers and forms with upper secondary students. Our study of the textbooks has been ranges within the period from 1917 until 2009: we choose the year 1917 because the Soviet revolution started at the former date.

The purpose of this thesis was to study how preschool teachers interpret the values of the preschool curriculum that relates to culture and how the teachers describe how they work with these values in their professional practice. The study is based on social constructive and discourse analytic perspectives. I have studied how preschool teachers construct the concept of culture and the values of the preschool curriculum through a specific way to describe this. A specific way to talk about something is called a discourse. In other words I have studied preschool teachers expressed discourses about culture and their professional practice with the values of the preschool curriculum.To study this, I've done interviews with four preschool teachers.