Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

This project had the aim to produce an exhibition catalogue for the ValandSchool of fine Arts (BA level). The purpose was to give the student a professionalfrontage and to visualize there exhibition concept through the catalogue.What elements, typography and shapes should be used for this purpose?How important is the physical format that the catalogue has?Through a massive sketch phase I came to see the difficulties in creating anexhibition catalogue. What type of images, shapes and expressions that couldrepresent the concept behind this specific art exhibition was hard to find.What shape should the catalogue have?The work became more than just making an exhibition catalogue, the cataloguehad to communicate the specific concept in a clear way.

The competition for the beach promenade in Helsingborg was announced in 2001 and was arranged by the city of Helsingborg. My contribution to the competition represents the main part of my thesis in the Landscape Architecture Programme. The competition entry is based on the concept of crossing screens of vertical elements which connect the pattern and structure of the city to the beach and the water. The different materials and designs of the screens relate to the various characters of the different parts of the area and they form a sequence and uniting theme along the beach. In addition to the competition entry which was made in 2001, the thesis contains a second part, made in the spring of 2006. It consists of an Introduction with the competition programme and a description of the starting points, a part called Method where the process is described, and the Conclusion with reflections on the competition entry and the process where I also introduce and comment on some other projects which in different ways have are connected to my concept. .

The aim of this essay is to examine the relationship between picture and room, between wallpainting and architecture. The basis for such exploration is the mural painting in Sweden at the turn of the 20th century, and the artist in focus is Prince Eugen (1865-1947).His works "Sommar"(1904), "Rimfrosr"(1909) & "Staden vid vattnet"(1922) and the rooms in which they are in make for an anlysis concerning how the totality of the space is experienced by the viewer.The main issue in mentioned expeience is how the mural is perceived with regard to the other elements in the room. And here, the walls' "flatness" enhancing its decorative qualities plays in. The problem with a mural built on the principles of perspective becomes evident when a wall is seen to vanish through the painting of an illusion on it..

This thesis discusses the theory of securitization in relation to the issue of irregularmigration, from EU level to national level. By using discourse analysis, the purpose isto explore whether the discourse leads to practice when it comes to nationalimplementation of EU debates on return policy. The material used in this workconsists of policy documents regarding the Return Directive from the EuropeanCommission as well as the Reva Project in Swedish migration policy. The mainobjective of the Reva Project is to make the process of returning irregular immigrantsmore effective and it has been strongly criticized, both by media and public opinion.The conclusion of this case study is that even if the security rhetoric may appearstronger on the EU level, the main elements of the security discourse are stillportrayed in the implementation on the national level. Based on this analysis we canmake the presumption that discourse develops into practice in the case of returnpolicy in the EU-member state relation..

This project has been about illustration, text and format with illustration as the main communication path.A study has been made of how these three elements interact, particularly how text and format affect the illustrations. The goal has been to create an illustrated story in a form of a book. The story is about the feeling of being alienated from other people and invites the reader to make their own interpretations. The main target audience has been the ones who is interested in illustration and storytelling, no matter of age.Colors has been inspired from animated movies and the natur. Various textures such as wood, fabric and metal for example has been scanned to create a rough feeling.

In the faster growing pace of changes and competition in the global economy, factors promoting group effectiveness are of interest. How do components of leadershipstyle, especially transformational, team climate and selfefficacy correlate? To answer this question 3 questionnaires regarding leadershipstyle (MLQ), team climate (TCI-Short) and selfefficacy (self developed) were distributed to employees of a Swedish installation company (108 participants). Moderate positive correlations were found between climate and selfefficacy and between varying elements of leadership and selfefficacy. The leadership behaviour Contingent Reward correlated moderately with all climate dimensions and strongly with selfefficay.

New technologies and new consumer behaviors are having a large impact on mediacompanies. The biggest change is in the behavior of the younger demographic whereold platforms like television are abandoned for new online platforms. In this newworld, media companies and organizations need new tools and business models tostay competitive. One such tool is Design Thinking, a term used to describe a cognitivedesign-specific set of activities used during a design process. It has been popularizedin commercial areas and there the term is used to describe an applicable workflowused to promote the skills required to use Design Thinking.

The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers at Swedish upper secondary schools perceive the so-called value words and knowledge requirements of religious studies 1 as defined by the present curriculum for upper secondary school 2011 (Gy11) how they consider themselves to apply these value words in their teaching, and whether they consider the knowledge requirements as alegitimate basis for equivalentassessment. My studyis based oninterviewswithfour teachers in religious studies at four different upper swcondary schools in the municipalityof Jönköping, Sweden. The results of my study show that the interviewed teachers perceive the value words in the knowledge requirements of religious studies 1,as defined by the present curriculum Gy11, aredifficult to interpret and that the value wordsare not definitive, but interpretable. All teachers use the knowledge requirements in theirplanning of teaching,but also in teaching where they are to concretize the knowledge requirements and value wordsthrough their own examples. Half of the teachers, however, experienced a lack of interest in the knowledge requirements by the pupils, which make it even more important to discuss knowledge requirementswith them, while the teachers?assessment has to rely on these knowledge requirements.

This report is an attempt to clarify how religious and non-religious views-of-life [livsåskådningar] are created through the collaboration and opposition of religious and scientific elements/ideas. This with the hope of reaching a fruitful result related to the solution of world-view related conflicts, such as the ones existing between science and religion, on an individual and societal level.This is accomplished with the help of two assertions: (1) Mankind has a need to explain its existence and surroundings. (2) Religion and science has their origins in the same seed and aim to serve the same purpose, or function. Together these two assertions lay the theoretical foundations of this report which implies that all humans have an innate need of sustaining a stable world-view.The result of this report is that a final solution to world-view related conflicts are beyond reach as our mental and physical nature limits us. However there are strategies for minimizing world-view related conflicts effect on society..

Since 2005 the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has prescribed a mandatory requirement that all ?Publicly Consolidated Entities? abide by the ?International Financial Reporting Standards? (IFRS). However, due to a difference in institutional elements, between countries, differences in financial reporting are still possible. This essay aims to identify such differences between Swedish and British companies in their adaptation of the IFRS, specifically differences in; ?Disclosure Requirements for Goodwill? specified in ?IAS 36 p 134?.

This report consists of two parts, out of which the first deals with the planning and designing ofa small house in the Swedish city of Huddinge, using the weather conditions of the Swedish cityof Malmö. The house has to be in accordance with the Swedish building- and constructionregulations, as well as with the limitations in energy consumption given.The house itself has to consist of at least two bedrooms, and blueprints of the house, variousconstructional elements, ventilation, sanitation and electricity have to be drawn. Calculations ofthese aspects also have to be made, to ascertain that the different parts function as they should,and that the dimensions are sufficient.The second part is called ?Allergy free home?, and investigates how indoor climate affects us,and whether it has changed during the last few decades. It also makes an effort to see whetherthe increase of allergies and asthma is correlated with possible changes in indoor climate, andwhether technical solutions might help to handle or even decrease the issues arisen.

The paper discusses and analyzes differences and similarities in depictions of violence in the two narrative media of films and games. The work is based on existing theories on representation, remediation, narration and immersion ? theories which are further developed and discussed by the author. The movies Man on Fire and Kill Bill, as well as the games Ninja Gaiden and Grand Theft Auto are analyzed and used as examples of how depictions of violence in films and games can or should be studied. Also, the possibilities for development of the theories used in the paper are considered.

My master?s thesis is a study of acquisition of photographies during 1958-2008. The questions I proceed from is what patterns lies behind the Royal library's acquisition of photography and how the process of acquisition looks like. The theoretical base which I lean on consists partly of a problematization of the process of cultural heritage and partly of organizational theory. The problematization of the process of cultural heritage is my foundation of this essay.

AbstractBy finding out the pupils' choice of strategies for problem solving, we as teachers, can get a better understanding of their way of thinking, and thus also help them develop in their learning of mathematics. In a classroom environment where several different strategies could be found, the pupils' learning is facilitated as they, with the help of classmates, find positive and negative attributes of different kinds of strategies. The pupils are, in other words, each other's resources, rather than competitors. The main point is that the classroom environment, as well as the role of the teacher in the classroom, are both key elements for good mathematics learning.In order to increase the understanding of the pupils' choice of learning strategies, a survey was performed based on two school classes, one third grade and one six grade class at the same school. Both classes received the same mathematical problem to work with, and the strategies observed were analyzed and compared.