In the year 1783 a fissure eruption from Laki in the southern part of Iceland produced a large amount of volcanic gases during a period of eight months. The volcanic gases and aerosols spread across the northern hem sphere due to ideal weather conditions and had a substantial impact on the environment, human health and also climate effects. This, so called dry fog, caused severe health problems, which led to death casualties, killing animals, crops and other vegetation. The consequence was a widespread famine which was aggravated by a hard and long winter in 1783/84. Analysis shows that the Icelandic volcanoes are the primary risk to produce dry fog that can affect Sweden.

There are several objects of age whose provenance and history has disappeared with time. The purpose of this thesis is to find out which analyzing methods that gives results and how the different methods can be combined and /or established in each other. The investigations centers around an embroidery, belonging to Tämta church, with unknown origin, use and age. The embroidery is long and narrow with applications in the form of dragons and eagles on a ground of velvet cloth. The dragons and eagles are covered with metal threads.

The Internet offers an abundance of information. This information is easy to access in technical terms, however it is difficult to find. At present there is a wide variety of search services to choose from. This master's thesis is about selecting the appropriate search service for a certain question. Are different types of services suitable for different types of questions, and if so, which services for which questions?To answer this, I have undertaken one theoretical and one empirical study.

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

This case study examines the new media presentation system in Alby public library. The aim is to explore if the contemporary Zeitgeist, wich according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, could be described as liquid modernity, has affected how the system was formed. The purpose is to find out how that would affect users and staff of public libaries of the contemporary. Interviews were conducted with the library staff, and plans and documents concerning the media presentation system was examined.The empirical part of this thesis starts with a study of the process that resulted in the new presentation system while the second part examines the system as such. I discovered that both the media presentation system, and the process which preceded it, contained aspects that could be traced to liquid modernity.

Abstract ?The Vampire from past to present?. This essay studies and compares the early historical Vampire as it is presented in some of the Western Europe countries, primarily Greece, but also Romania and how their descriptions of the Vampire have inspired the portrait of vampires in modern films and literature. The essay aims to answer the questions:How has the historical, traditional, European Vampire developed through the centuries into the modern Vampire of today? Which original facts and perceptions about the Vampire from a Christian and pre-Christian point of view can be observed in the modern Vampire, as it is presented in the chosen films and furthermore, can any new ideas be observed in the films?By studying Vampire literature and poems throughout the centuries, a very interesting picture appears.

The aim of this study is to get a better understanding of the Iranian regime. My theory is that the Iranian regime is a semi-dictatorship, based on the soul fact that semi-competetive elections take place. The main question this thesis tries to answer is what characterizes the political construction of the Iranian regime and by what means does it implement its political goals. In trying to answer this question the case of Iran is applied to four specific typologies being, semi-dictatorship, military rule, single party rule and personal rule. The aim has not been to categorically analyze if the Iranian regime matches one typology or the other perfectly, as this is seldom the case when it comes to typologies.After analysis of the four typologies, the conclusion is that the Iranian regime utilizes semi-competitive elections to give a guise of democracy, as is in line with a semi-dictatorship.

Vi har i denna studie undersökt om den grävande journalistiken har större möjligheter än journalistik i allmänhet att fullfölja det journalistiska uppdraget. För att kunna svara på den frågan har vi först, genom teori, tittat på skillnaderna mellan den vardagliga journalistikens ideal och hur den fungerar i praktiken. Glappet visade sig vara väldigt stort. Med teorin som grund har vi genom den kvalitativa ansatsen analyserat tre inslag från det grävande tv-programmet ?Uppdrag granskning?.

I denna uppsats undersöker och identifierar jag språkliga strategier i kampanjtexter från Försvarsmakten. Undersökningen syftar till att med hjälp av en sociosemiotisk analys kartlägga de modelläsare som konstrueras i Försvarsmaktens rekryteringskampanjer för grundläggande militär utbildning. Undersökningsmaterialet består av printannonser från tre kampanjer genomförda mellan år 2012 och 2013. Metoden för undersökningen är lånad från Anders Björkvalls avhandling svensk reklam och dess modelläsare och består av en analysmodell baseras på Hallidays systemisk-funktionella grammatik. Modellen tar fasta på textens textuella, ideationella och interpersonella betydelser såväl som textens rekontextualisering.

The purpose of this study is to see how five different local radio stations, P4, within the public service organization Sveriges Radio communicate with their listeners through Facebook and how they differ from each other.We have also studied how the radio stations follow Sveriges Radios? policies for socialmedia usage and how the communication through Facebook can benefit thetraditional radio. Our study contains a combination of quantitative content analysis with qualitative interviews. We studied the five stations? Facebook pages from for the quantitative content analysis and interviewed those who were responsible for the social media pages, such as web editors and channel managers.Our conclusions are that the P4-stations communicate through Facebook to create a dialogue with the listeners and to reach two-way communication; the stations published mostly written updates that encouraged interactivity.

The aim of this master thesis is to create an understanding of what it can be like to grow older as a homosexual man in Sweden today. The study has an intersectional and queer theoretical approach and is based on eight in depth interviews with men who are aged between 68 and 82 years old. In the analysis I deal with the problem of how sexuality can be inter- preted with the experience of aging. Central to the analysis is the criticism of norms connected to age, sexuality, social- and family life and gay culture.The results show that the norm-breaking sexual orientation of the men affects their life path in terms of how to organize social life, where friends often replace the traditional family. New ways of forming relationships and living their lives imply other obligations rather than the traditional for significant others, which was shown to influence the expectations and outcome of old age in terms of care and support.

This is an essay about love and gender representation in Håkan Hellström?s and Veronica Maggio?s lyrics. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how lyrics of indie-pop music represent gender, sexuality and love. The lyrics used is from love songs performed by Håkan Hellström and Veronica Maggio. The method for examining the lyrics of the love songs is discourse- theory and analysis.

Young people may be socially and psychologically strained due to unemployment. In the long run, it could result in learned helplessness, which is, according to Seligman (1993), a psychological condition with similar symptoms to the ones that occur during depression. The condition develops when an individual experiences negative events and, after various unsuccessful attempts to escape or conquer them, the individual finally believes that there is no relation between behavior and consequences. The result is often that the person gives in, or stops, making an effort when new difficult situations occur. Kalix UniverCity runs the project called KUBIK in the communities of Kalix and Överkalix.

This study is based on discussions among Swedish brass teachers about teaching other brass instruments than their main instrument. Why do some choose to teach only with the help of their main instrument while others use their secondary instruments as well? What are the advantages and disadvantages and how do they look upon other ways of thinking in this matter?In addition, the study examines brass teachers? views on the balance between pedagogical and instrumental skill, as well as their views on teaching sound, technique and expression in relation to the age of the student.A questionnaire was used and anwered by 24 teachers with teaching experience in municipal music schools ranging from 7 months to 35 years. The results indicate that pedagogical skill is always important, whereas the importance of instrumental skill increases as the student gets older and more experienced. The advantage of teaching with the help of the main instrument is that one always keeps a high musical and technical level.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how librarians talk about users in social media. Using a method of discourse analysis based on Ernesto Laclau?s and Chantal Mouffe?s theoretical concepts it seeks to answer the following questions: How do librarians describe and comment on users in social media? In which contexts do librarians talk about users in social media? Which ideas of the relationship between the librarians and the users do the user discourses present?The study focuses on a Facebook page called ?Arga Bibliotekstanten? (The Angry Library Lady) and all its posts and comments during the period of January to June 2013. This is an ?open? page available for anyone to follow; at the time of the study it had approximately 1800 ?followers? and 4000 ?friends?, both librarians and users.The results show that librarians talk about the users in a variety of ways, but mainly concerning money, behavior and task.