The main purpose of this study is to examine differences and similarities concerning teamwork and interactive skills among preschool children while they interact with an Ipad respective a number of selected traditional artifacts. The traditional artifacts chosen for this study are small Lego blocks, JovoToys (click and construct system) and large puzzles. The study takes its starting point on the basis of both a social- and a learning perspective when different groups of preschool children in the ages from three to five years interact in fellowship groups with respective artifact. Primarily the main focus is to examine differences and similarities that appear from without the social perspective.The overall objective is to identify what eventual differences and similarities can be found purposely on both what is happening in the social interaction between the preschool children themselves but also what is taking place in the interaction between the children and each artifact. This study will also via theoretical frameworks create an understanding why eventual differences and similarities exist.The results are based on both a literature review and a field study.

Abstract Essay in political science, C-level, by Patrik Larsson, autumn semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton The battle over the agenda-Can media be regarded as an individual political actor? The purpose of this essay is to study to what extent media can be regarded to function as an individual political actor. In other words, do the media have more power over the political agenda than the politicians and do the media influence how the politicians make their decisions. This research is a case study and to be able to complete the intention of this study I have used Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaws theory, the agenda-setting theory. From this theory I have used four aspects to analyse my material which has consisted of editorials from a Swedish newspaper, interpellations and debates that belong to the interpellations. The aspect I have worked with are, how the problem is defined, who is responsible for the problem, what values and which solutions are expressed.  I have used a qualitative text analysis as my methodological approach which means that the results of my study are my interpretation of the material. My conclusions are that the media in this case shouldn?t be regarded as an individual political actor because there is no tendency that shows that the media has influenced the government in their decisions concerning the real-estate tax.

Today 70 percent of the people residing in nursing homes are undernourished. One way to avoid that an individual is affected by malnutrition it is a necessity that the meals is customized after special needs current among other things as energy and protein. Food record is a method that can be used to examine and evaluate if an individual is getting sufficient nutrition and energy to cover the daily needs. For those suffering from malnutrition it is recommended to eat energy and protein enriched diet.AimsThe aim is to compare the intake of energy and macronutrients in a group of elderly people living in a nursing home in southern Sweden before and after the introduction of an energy and protein enriched diet based on newly developed recipes.MethodsFood record was made during four days. Food record means that everything that is consumed by an individual is noted precisely.

AbstractPURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe and compare possible differences regarding selected prognostic factors for disability between patients with non-specific chronic pain who were about to start a multidisciplinary treatment program (MMR), either within primary care (MMR1) or hospital care (MMR2).METHODS: The study had a descriptive and comparative cross sectional design. Eighty-nine patients were recruited consecutively when they were about to start their team treatment (50 in MMR1,39 in MMR2). The measurements were; Evaluation of self-reported self-efficacy for eight daily activities (STIVA-8), The Pain Belief Screening Instrument (PBSI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).RESULTS: The study found some significant differences between the answers from patients in MMR1 and those from patients in MMR2. For instance, patients in MMR2 estimated lower self-efficacy according to STIVA-8 than patients in MMR1. Also, there were fewer low risk patients and more high risk patients in MMR2 than in MMR1 regarding pain intensity according to PBSI.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a group of students experience their learning when working in groups, and determine if they prefer to work individually or in groups. This study will also investigate what the students believe that they learn when working in groups. The study is based on these two questions:How and what do students perceive that they learn from working in groups?Do the students in my study prefer to work in groups or individually?The method I have used to retrieve information has been to interview four different students. The interviews were individual; I did so to get a deeper view of how students perceive their own learning in groups.

Automatic query expansion has long been studied in information retrieval research as a technique that deals with the fundamental issue of word mismatch between query and document. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the retrieval effectiveness of different strategies for automatic query expansion. The strategies are based on local analysis of the corpus and use statistical information from the local document set to extract terms that suppose to adapt themselves to each individual search and therefore appear to be searchonyms to the index terms. The strategies compared are: association clusters, metric cluster and scalar cluster. Baseline queries of 24 topics are expanded using terms from the different clusters and searches are made.

The store manager can make great benefits of having an eye on how the staff works towards the customer, because the personnel is an important tool when competing with other stores. This paper is focusing on the part that relates to the staff in the store, which is one of the key tools in the competition for customers after the customer made it to the store. Many stores have guidelines which the staff should follow when they meet with customers. If the staff is too tightly controlled by these guidelines, customers can perceive the first encounter with the staff as artificial and as if the genuine friendliness does not exist. It is important that the staff looks at the individual customer and treat every customer in a personal way and that the staff can see the customer?s needs.

Sport horses are widely used for performance in jumping, dressage, endurance etc. To enable comparisons of horses, training facilities, programs or physical status, an exercise test can be used. Exercise tests are also important to increase knowledge about exercise physiology of the horse considering different ways of training to compare training methods or individual qualities, development of an individual or other investigations of equine exercise physiology. Since several investigations are done on standard- and thoroughbred horses but less on sport horses, it is of great importance to get an overview of the investigations done. Most common is to investigate heart rate and lactate concentration.

Outdoor recreation habits in metropolis and rural areasThis study aims to examine the perception of nature and outdoor recreation habits from an urban-rural prospective. The urbanization process continues in Sweden and the populations of the cities are growing continuously. Trends to build more compact and ?climate smart? reigns and with this a risk that green areas and areas where outdoor recreation can be practiced are situated further and further away from the urban population. Analyzing the responses from a survey made by the research program Friluftsliv i förändring 2007 we have examined if and which differences exists between urban and rural areas regarding their perception of nature, outdoor recreation habits and factors influencing the practice of outdoor recreation.

Hälsans Trädgård is a project which is going to start in Gamla Linköping, Sweden. The authors were commissioned by Arbetslivsresurs, a company working with work rehabilitation, to select, define and make job analyses on five work tasks at Hälsans Trädgård in Gamla Linköping. A job analysis means an analysis of the demands the job make of the individual. The job analysis used in this study is called The Revised Handbook for Analyzing Jobs (RHAJ) and is from the US Department of Labor (DOL). As RHAJ is an American instrument, the authors produced a form where the concepts are translated into Swedish to make the analysis easier.

The purpose of this study is to find out how social workers in one medium and one smallmunicipality in central Sweden perceive the need of financial support for young adults formore than one year and what the causes might be. To answer our research questions aqualitative research method was used and four social workers were interviewed. The resulthas been analyzed based of social exclusion, stigma, as well as on structural and individuallevel and linked to previous research. Our results show that although young adults are anexception for long duration for financial support, there are those who lack other means ofsupport for a long time. The results also show that young adults often are recurring in thesocial services, and they are long-lasting.

Aim: The aim was to investigate and describe, how students on high school level in Kronoberg county self rated their health with relation to irritation, nervousness/anxiety insomnia and gender. An additional aim was to investigate if there are differences between students born in Sweden by Swedish parents, students born in Sweden by foreign-born parents and foreign-born students. Methods: A quantitative method was used to analyse data gathered from students (n=1936) on high school level in 2006. All statistical analyses were made with help of SPSS V-12. Finding: The findings showed that most of the students self rated their health as ?good?, however migrant students self rated their health as ?not so good? and they had more problems with insomnia. The overall findings showed gender differences. Particularly, foreign-born girls self rated their health as ?not so good? and reported more problems with insomnia. There was no divergence between the groups regarding irritation, nervousness/anxiety. Conclusion: School nurses and health workers must have deep knowledge about differences in gender, self- rated health and insomnia when they work with public health.

This masters thesis concerns the professional knowledge of the librarian. It is a comparative study where two major ma-gazines in library press, Biblioteksbladet and DIK-forum, is compared between the years 1990-2000, in relation to the theories of professionalization and the associations to the union. The study focus on showing the differences and similarities between the two magazines according to how they interact from the subjects education, wages and status. The study is conducted from two questions: - Which are the central differences and similarities in the description of the librarian profession in the two magazines, from the perspectives of wage, status and education? - In what way do the two magazines reflect the theories of professionalization? To give a wider perspective of the librarian profession, there is also a historical chapter with an explanation to the making of the librarian profession..

The purpose with this essay is to compare two classes in an international school during their mathematic lesson. The international school offers education to their pupils in two languages; in Swedish and in English. Through this study I want to find out how teachers are working with language and communication during school hours. I will compare the work of two teachers and two classes to find out the differences and similarities between their work methods concerning language and communication during mathematic lessons.The main questions for the essay:How do the teachers work with language and communication in this school during the mathematic lessons?What similarities and differences are there between the two teachers in matter of methods of working with language and communication during the mathematic lessons?The research is based on interviews with the teachers and also on observations in the classroom during mathematic lessons.

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.