This study aims to highlight and analyze eight secondary teachers' views and thoughts on mathematics. Hopefully this study will provide a deeper understanding of how teachers think and reason about their subject and how this affects their teaching. The study was conducted using a qualitative interview method, based on interviews with eight middle school teachers who teach in school mathematics for grades 6 - 9. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed and analyzed. After the interview analysis one can conclude that the teachers? thoughts concern three main themes: the importance of mathematics, children?s lack of basic knowledge and the teachers? lack of time.In discussion and analysis the teachers conceptions of the own subject is being analyzed, and that is the foundation of this study.

The project Easy Battery Handling - EBH has been carried out in our auspicial and completedfor Devantini Corporation, a development company in Halmstad with its main concern inenvironmental friendly innovations.EBH has solved one of many technical challenges in one of Devantini corporation?s largerprojects. This main project involves the development of an electric powered formula racingcar. The part of this car that involved EBH was the battery handling to guarantee safe andquick battery exchanges during pit-stops.The solution became an entire battery module, hanging on the side of the car on two spearspointing out from the car. The batteries are exchanged by a specially designed trolley that isinserted under the battery module.

Liberal theorists typically argue that state action should not favor any particular conception of the good or meaningful life. On this view the defining characteristic of the liberal state is neutrality among rivaling ideas of the good. This thesis argues that state neutrality is impossible to maintain in practice. Two different versions of state neutrality; neutral justification and neutral aims, are used to analyze a wide range of political issues. It is concluded that far from being neutral, the liberal state favors individualistic and market oriented conceptions of the good life.

The Arctic region has not been a topic of discussion or a reason for a conflict in the past, but with the development of environmental issues which has resulted in melting of the ice, so has the interest for the region developed. This has resulted in a conflict over the area, with five countries as main actors. This paper investigates the five main actors? goals with increased influence in the area, using the thoughts of Rational Actor Model, with states as utility-maximizing actors and foreign policy as the expression of national interest. Furthermore the paper investigates the means of getting to the goal, what kind of tools they use.The paper shows that all of the countries are interested in the economically benefits that are buried under the melting ice and the short cuts in sea routes that will be a possibility to use ones the ice melt more.

AbstractMycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by filamentous fungi. Moulds producing mycotoxins grow on various crops that are used as horse feeds. Since the treatments of mycotoxin poisoned horses are limited it is important to prevent production of mycotoxins in feed. The major mycotoxin producing moulds in horse feeds are Fusarium spp., Penicillium spp. and Aspergillus spp.

What impact and effects are created by the placement of an international ranking? Could it be that a top rank is detrimental to an entire country's efforts to fight corruption?This bachelor thesis in political science is about Swedish corruption. In essence, so questioning the Transparency International's indexed rankings that placed Sweden in third place. Issues concern since if the third placement has created nonchalance and a careless mentality in Swedish government and in particular in the municipal operations. Research results show that Transparency International's rankings have low validity and low reliability and that the government is not acting sufficiently to prevent and fight corruption.

The purpose of this paper has been to explore how Internet is perceived, with reference to youth, risk and responsibility, by a section of the population in North-West Skåne in Sweden. The questions central to our area of interest were:- Where does the responsibility for a safe Internet environment lie?- What measures are believed to be able to make Internet safer?- Are the opinions about safety on the Internet affected by an individual'sknowledge and experience of the Internet?- Is there an awareness of which institutions are involved in Internet safety?We compared the results of our survey with earlier surveys done by SAFT and Eurobarometern. Additionally we compared various categories such as gender and age to discover any patterns within the groups.There is a clear conflict in the answers given by the group we studied, between the desire to have access to all the information and experiences Internet has to offer and the desire to protect youth from inappropriate content and/or influences from unknown sources. While we did find concern regarding issues of safety we did not find any indication of "moral panic"..

The main purpose of this master thesis is to identify guidelines for a sustainable production that can provide useful information concerning the establishment of a biodiesel production. These guidelines concern the surrounding production environment, such as infrastructures and industries.The thesis is based on theoretical grounds surrounding industrial symbiosis, biodiesel production and how sustainable development should be designed. A study of an already established producer in a similar business area has been used to provide a picture of similar projects. The thesis has with the supervisor's consent focused on the production conditions that are affected by location.The production conditions selected are heating, raw material market, residual and sustainable profile. These are then evaluated through an Excel-based sensitivity analysis.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether social counselling via chat conversations could meet the criteria for a professional conversation, and how the six social workers who were interviewed felt that it had affected the profession and the clients who are seeking their help.Communication, professionality, power, roles and regions are the key topics of this study. A hermeneutic approach has not only influenced the interviews but also the content analysis that was used to encode the results.The interviews revealed that the chat conversations was a successful tool but not entirely without difficulties. The initial contact making between the client and the social worker favours the client, since she/he remains anonymous and that was the main advantage of the method. The biggest concern however was that in the anonymity it is not possible to report cases that the social worker are obligated to. The changing of forum does not necessarily affect the professionality but due to the faceless chat conversation an entire dimension of communication disappears because the loss of body language.

In this essay, I compare ten different depictions of the Irish Easter Rising of 1916. These depictions are all from books published between 1924 and 2000, which deal with a wider context of the history of Ireland or Northern Ireland. I relate the depictions to the point in time when they were written, the geographic focus of the book, and the views that the author expresses about the present and the future, and about the significance of history. The main result of my essay is that the depictions differ in a way that seems connected to whether or not there was an ongoing violent conflict in Ireland at the time the books were written. Texts written when the political violence was present, or close, in time and location, are likely to be written either in a neutral tone with concern about objectivity, or incorporating the Easter Rising events in context of an ongoing socialist struggle.

Service quality occurs in service encounters where both customers and employees come together in an interaction. It is therefore important that the staff give their best because the interaction usually takes place in real time, which is referred to as the moment of truth.The aim of this study was to find out how luxury hotels are working to ensure good service quality, and how the staff are motivated to deliver this service. We wanted to examine this from a management perspective, and an employee perspective. Information was gathered through various interviews, where the staff at the Hotel Kämp in Helsinki and at the Sheraton Hotel Stockholm participated.Survey results show that employee motivation, training and empowerment have a significant impact to provide service in high quality. The results also show that the surveyed hotel, to certain level work in the same way, but it reveals some differences even when both hotels are part of the same concern..

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.

The aim of child health care is to promote health and development for all children, to early identify problems that concern children´s growth and development and to prevent ill-health among children. Today in our society the proportion of children who are underweight are few.The aim with this study was to describe paediatric nurses experience in meeting with underweight children and their parents. Interviews were implemented and analyzed according to qualitative content analysis. Focus was placed on looking at differences and interpretations in the text content. The analyse resulted in six main categories, such as a need of sensitivity and a holistic view from the nurse, difficulties in handling the meeting because lack of tools.

The aim of this study has been to, through a couple of chosen theories, examine in what way and for what purposes Japan has used its international aid system, How can the nation have been said to have implemented and acted in lines with the philosophies and principles set forth in the ODA declaration. What approaches, concerning positive and negative aid sanctions in the matters of aid to Cambodia and Burma, have been chosen and what have the motives for these choices been. What have been the determining factors of the outcome related to these sanctions - economic, political and/or matters of identity? I have found that a concern for possible decrease in economic profit and investment related areas, combined with a feared loss of political prestige and worsened diplomatic relations to the neighbouring countries in the Asian society, have come to overtrump the notion of advocating democracy, human rights, environmental and anti-militaristic issues..

The aim of this Masters thesis is, partly, to examine the information needs of lesbians: what discernable information needs they have, how they seek information and which information sources they use. The purpose is also to examine what part fiction plays regarding the information needs mentioned above and how fiction indexing could improve retrieval. The study is conducted through ten qualitative interviews with lesbians as well as through textual analysis. The theoretical framework includes queer theory and theory concerning information needs and uses. The results indicate that lesbians have evident information needs that mostly concern identity.