This essay is about democracy and how a democracy index can be used as a tool to illustratethe gap between reality and ideal. The purpose of this study can be expressed by two researchquestions: Does the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) democracy index illustrate thedistance between reality and the ideal of democracy presented by Dahl? and Can the EIU'sdemocracy index be modified by a) internal adjustments and b) using the variables includedin World Economic Forum?s (WEF) equality index?By using a combination of theories (Dahl?s theory of democracy, Rawls theory of justice andchosen theories critical to liberal democracy) as an analytical framework the following twoquestions have been answered:1) Which of the variables included in the EIU's democracy index have the potential to capturethe level of political equality?2) Which of the variables included in the WEF?s equality index have the potential to capturethe degree of political equality?By using a quantitative method the study?s third and last question has been answered:3) How strong is the rank correlation between the EIU?s democracy index and the WEF?sequality index, that is; how strong is the rank correlation coefficient (rho)?The data presented by the WEF?s equality index indicate that women are systematicallydiscriminated against as a group. From a democratic perspective the EIU may need tomeasure inequalities at a group level in order to capture the lack of political equality betweenindividuals. By reformulating some of the EIU?s variables, by revising the EIU?s point systemand by using the variables included in the WEF's equality index to extend EIU?s democracyindex, the chances of capturing the gap between reality and the ideal of democracy presentedby Dahl would likely increase..

In Italy in 1528 the famous author Baldassare Castiglione published the book Il Cortegiano. In words Castiglione portraits the ideal courtiers and provides a lot of advice on how to achieve the ultimate courtier manner. For example he introduces and explains the words sprezzatura and grazia. His advice spread from Italy and influenced the courts around Europe. My purpose with this study has been two folded. Firstly, I have analysed Castigliones Il Cortegiano in order to examine his vision of virtues and ideals.

The aim of this study has been to examine, describe and analyze how masculinities can be represented and understood among boys in a Swedish primary school context. The study was conducted within a school located in a small community on the country side. Through the use of a qualitative research design we interviewed 13 boys from the fifth grade of this school, who all got to express and reason their perspectives of what it meant to them to be a boy in primary school and how that could impact their social life. For a wider understanding of the different dimensions of masculinity we used R.W. Connell's (2008) theoretical framework, hegemonic masculinity, which implies that there are multiple definitions of masculinities that are constructed in relation to each other in a hierarchical order.

Denna studie över likpredikningar från 1700-talets Stockholm har som mål att undersöka seklets ideal, dödssyn samt samhällssyn hos överklassen. Vilka är de manliga och kvinnliga idealen och skiljer de sig åt? Detta genomförs med en kvalitativ textanalys av källmaterialet. Under 1700-talet var dygden framstående hos både män och kvinnor, med den skillnaden att dygden hos kvinnorna sammankopplas med gudfruktighet. Ytterligare centrala ideal är äkthet i sitt varande och plikttrogenhet.

This study investigates a Swedish educational project aimed to incorporate young people with intellectual disabilities into the labor market through internship. This qualitative interview study was conducted with six of the project student?s internship supervisors. The purpose of this study is thus to examine the motives behind the decision to take on a trainee from the program at the workplace. In addition, the study also aims to examine whether and how dif-ferent factors of the workplace affect the trainee?s opportunities for social inclusion in the workplace.

This thesis has been carried out onbehalf of Lindborg & Sons in Örsundsbroand is a concluding part of the Bachelorof Science program in ConstructionEngineering at Uppsala University. Theaim of the project is to make a plea fora database of good examples of themachine room types using Revit drawingprogram, and work out a correspondingworksheet .At the start of the process it becameapparent that there were somedifficulties in using Revit to creatingmachine room types of the variety whichthe company builds. For modelling ofoblique, curved and irregular lines, Ihad to use my AutoCAD Architecture andthen import them into Revit.The creation of calculus in Excel wastime consuming. On the other hand, it isa one-time work to create the template.The advantage of Excel is that there isno need for a re-calculation at the costof various types of machine hall. Allthat is needed is to replace the variousparameters.

Dagligen exponeras vi av information om hur vi bör träna, äta och leva för att må bra. Rådgivning står att finna överallt, via TV, Internet och veckotidningar där olika hälso- och skönhetsexperter ger tips och råd om hur vi bäst kan hålla kroppen i form. Antologin Skönhetens dimensioner behandlar ämnen som rör kroppen, utseendet och identitetsskapandet. Vårt syfte med denna studie är att belysa relationen mellan identitet och utseende i samhället utifrån olika perspektiv. Vi diskuterar positiva och negativa effekter utifrån tankar om hälso-, utseende- och kroppsideal samt vilken påverkan massmedia har på individen.

The aim of the essay was to describe what some young Swedish and Spanish people had to say about alcohol cultures. Some of the questions asked were: How are the alcohol cultures in Sweden and Spain described? What are the differences, and where do they come from? What would an ideal alcohol culture look like? The investigation also had a comparing angle, as I was interested in what the people valued in their own culture and in the others´. The result was that there hardly exist a perfect alcohol culture, but that the stricter Sweden as well as the liberal Spain both have positive and negative aspects. Differences in politics and culture seem to create variations in a society´s drinking customs.

Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka hur en grupp unga, svenska kvinnor mellan 20-30 år upplever de kvinnliga skönhetsidealen, samt att granska vad målgruppen anser om Doves Campaign for Real Beauty. Syftet är att studera om informanterna upplever kampanjen som ett steg i rätt riktning för att öka diskussionen och vidga begreppet skönhet. Med detta hoppas vi uppnå en större förståelse för hur unga svenska kvinnor ser på skönhetsidealen idag och om kampanjer likt Doves, är rätt tillvägagångssätt för att nå ett förändrat ideal.Teori: Delar av feministisk teori, receptionsstudier samt Stuart Halls teori om inkodning och avkodning.Metod: Två kvalitativt semistrukturerade fokusgruppsintervjuer med totalt sju kvinnor.Slutsatser: Informanterna skiljer på skönhet och skönhetsideal. De anser att Doves kampanj, Campaign for Real Beauty är ett steg i rätt riktning för ett förändrat ideal. Däremot ifrågasätter de Doves uttalade budskap med kampanjen och menar att det huvudsakliga målet skulle vara att öka försäljningen och stärka varumärket, snarare än att öka kvinnors självförtroende..

This paper is about if municipal council's ideology affect steering in the municipalities of Vellinge and Fagertsa. Vellinge has for a long time been governed by Sweden's conservative party Moderaterna. Fagersta has for a long time been governed by Sweden's left party Vänsterpartiet. The main question of the paper to be answered is as follows:Is there a relation between the steering in municipalities and the ideology of the governing parties?The hypothesis is that there is a connection between what ideology the party that governs has and how the municipalities are being governed.

Nordström är J, Waldesten, S. En studie om äldre kvinnor och hur de påverkas av samhällets ideal skönhet. Examensarbete i socialt arbete 15 poäng. Malmö högskola. Hälsa och samhälle 2011. ABSTRAKT Syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska och fördjupa förståelsen av äldre kvinnors relationer till kroppsliga utseende.

This study is about the importance of pictures to children's pleasure in reading. The aim of this study was to investigate pupils ' thoughts about the pictures in picture books. I wanted to find out if the pictures in the books are of importance to children's pleasure in reading and why. Also what types of pictures that create the pleasure in reading and why. Through literature, I see why it is important to read books and how teachers can create encouraging reading among children.

Cloud computing is a new buzzword within the IT-industry, and introduces a whole new way of working with IT. The technique delivers web based services, which results in that the user no longer needs to install an application locally on a computer. Since the application no longer needs to run on a local entity, but in a datacenter located on a service provider, the users no longer need any specific hardware more than a computer with an internet connection. Cloud computing also offers IT-infrastructure and development environments as services, these three service types is better known as cloud services. Through the usage of different types of cloud services, the need for maintenance and hardware is significantly reduced.

This thesis is a case-study of an ongoing court case between the Swedish Competition Agency and Växjö Municipality about a set-up requirement to the long-distance heating system for newly built private houses on municipality owned land. This requirement was set up as part of the municipality?s long-term environmental goals; however the Competition Agency claims that the demand is damaging the free market in the municipality. The purpose of this thesis is to determine which normative assumptions the decision makers have based their actions and re-action on, and whether or not these assumptions are valid, thru theoretical Ideal types. This is determined via method of textual analysis.

Jag vill med min uppsats undersöka bilden av kvinnan i samtida iransk konst och besvara frågor om-        vilken kvinnobild som lyfts fram-        vilket kvinnoideal-        huruvida kvinnorna i bilderna är bundna till dessa ideal eller om de är fria att bestämma själva-        om kvinnorna bryter mot sin egen kulturs ideal, och i sådant fall, fastnar de då i någon annan kulturs kvinnoideal?För att kunna besvara frågorna har jag valt ut tre samtida kvinnliga iranska konstnärer och analyserar två verk var av dem. Konstnärerna är Shadi Ghadirian, Shirin Aliabadi och Sagher Daeeri, alla tre verksamma i Iran.Jag har i mina analyser använt mig av en semiotisk analysmetod och jag har en feministisk och kulturell infallsvinkel i mitt resonemang och använder mig av feministiska konstteorier..