Environmental chemicals are transported to the Arctic through the air and oceans, once within the Arctic they spread through rivers, lakes and other watercourses. Polar bears and sledge dogs in-gest high concentrations of environmental chemicals since many of the chemicals are fat-soluble and their diet mainly consists of marine mammals. The aim of this study is to describe how environmental chemicals spread in nature, how they reach the polar bears, and finally how they affect the animals reproduction, with reproductive hormones and genitals in focus. The animals are exposed to a cocktail effect which complicates the assessment of the chemicals impact on the reproduction. Studies show that the genitals can decrease in size or become malformed, sexual maturation can be affected and the reproductive hormones can be disturbed.

Introduction: Public health is based on the determinants of health. They mutually influence each other. Structural factors and life conditions contribute to health inequality both within and between countries. Health inequality can be seen between different social groups, which can be the cause of differences in living conditions, health behavior and disease vulnerability. One of the consequences of this is segregation which means that certain groups live apart, where this distribution can be connected to economic resources and/or ethnicity.

Wind power is expanding rapidly in Sweden. Increasing amounts of wind power sets higher requirements on balancing power and grid expansions and would affect the whole Swedish electricity system. The aim of this report is to examine the factors affecting the wind power expansion in Sweden. How many wind power plants projects will obtain building permissions and what costs and revenues can be expected? How much balancing power will be required and does a changing geographical distribution of the wind power plants reduce the need of balancing power?A survey of the county board?s official applications has been made and out of all the applications, corresponding to 80 TWh produced per year, about half of the applications are expected to obtain a permit with a major portion of them located in the north of Sweden.Especially older wind power plants, deriving revenue from Nord pool, find themselves today in a complicated financial situation.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

Unwanted vegetation on the land of electric transforming stations is a problem, in the sense that it contributes to higher fire risks and also constitutes an obstacle for people performing maintenance operations at the station. Such unwanted vegetation is controlled using herbicides and mechanical measures. Since the use of herbicides implies environmental hazards, there is a need to find alternative ways of fighting the unwanted vegetation. Investigation into suitable plants for ground cover, trials in the greenhouse, trials in the field, soil analyses and compilation of experiences from similar trials are parts of this work. The paper also contains analyses of possible environmental benefits and economical gains. There is also a final discussion of some proposals regarding alternative weed controlling methods.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how subordination and superiority emerges in the interaction between heterosexual couples between 20 to 30 years old, without children. Eight semi-structured interviews with four couples have been conducted to provide insight into how subordination and superiority is made in the interaction between the cohabiting couples. All interviews were transcribed and then manually categorized along specific main themes and sub themes. The empirical data were then assayed by a hermeneutic interpretation.   Three previous studies have formed the basis for this study, Det kallas kärlek by Carin Holmberg, the anthology, Jämställdhetens pris and Familjer i tiden by Christine Roman and Helen Peterson. The theoretical framework consists symbolic interactionism, and especially the concept of asymmetrical role-taking and also doing gender.

In this paper we aim to delve deeper into the film industry and how their approach to streaming services such as Netflix might be the solution to the problems with piracy (people downloading illegally instead of paying for the products) - but before they can change the mindset of people, they have to overcome some issues that might make it hard for the film industry to adapt a fully functionable streaming sollution in the veins of Spotify. To come up with some conclusions regarding this matter, we focused our study on the consumers rather than the industry in order to get a better understanding about what the consumers think about the streaming services of film that are offered today. We used both surveys and interviews in order to gather information regarding the consumers thoughts on how the landscape of film distribution has evolved to a point where Video-on-Demand offers the opportunity to watch movies and TV-series whereever and whenever they want. Our research shows that the majority of consumers are willing to pay for streaming services of film and hold the new technology in high regard. However, the concensus among the consumers that were involved in our study shows that the streaming services offered today have to evolve even further in the future before it can fully work as a substitute for illegal downloading.

Musikbranschen står idag inför ett stort förändringstryck då den verksamhet den är baserad på, skivförsäljning, på bara några år har tappat en tredjedel av sin omsättning. Ett stort hot mot skivförsäljningen är den ökande nedladdningen av musik via Internet. Musik är en vara som konsumeras i många olika former; inte bara via skivor utan genom radio och TV, konserter, på diskotek, under träningspasset på gymmet och så vidare. Alla dessa former ger intäkter till upphovsmännen samt artisterna och har idag stor betydelse för dem. Denna uppsats ämnar anlägga ett brett perspektiv på musikmarkanden och redogöra för hur dessa olika former hänger samman och påverkar varandra.Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och analysera marknaden för musik ur ett ekono-miskt teoretiskt perspektiv, för att sedan analysera musiknedladdningens välfärdsekonomiska påverkan på denna.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there was any connection between coping strategies; emotional and cognitive strategy and perceived level of stress among primary school teachers in primary and middle school. It was also investigated whether there was a difference between full-time and part-time employees and perceived level of stress. As a theoretical background Lazarus' transaction theory of stress was used as an explanation of mental stress, Lazarus coping strategies for stress and Karasek?s and Theorell?s model of psychosocial work environment was used to explain unhealthy at work. To measure coping we used Coping inventory resources and to measure the stress we used Percieved stress scale.

The thick-shelled river mussel (Unio crassus) is a red listed species classified as Endangered (EN) and is also considered within the Habitats Directive. The distribution in Sweden is fragmented and it is mostly occurring in the south eastern parts. We investigated the presence of Unio crassus in a section of the stream Storån, Östergötland County, from Falerum to the inflow into Lake Åkervristen. The environmental parameters investigated were water depth, bottom substrate, shading, water velocity and the slope over the water surface. In this thesis I have focused mainly on water depth and shading, comparing sites with and without mussels.

This paper examines the texts written on shards from wine-jars found at El-Amarna, Tutankhamuns tomb (KV 62) and Deir el-Medina. Information concerning the administration of wine and its production, found in these texts, is examined. Wine was an important element in Egyptian society and a common iconographic motif in tombs at Thebes during New Kingdom.A survey on previous research on the subject is presented. This is followed by analysis of the different reoccurring elements found in the texts. A definition of the standard formulation of the wine jar label texts is given and the minimal level of information needed for the administration of wine production and distribution is identified. The chapter of the analysis deals with the various types of information given in the label texts, such as date, wine classification, and function.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the Swedish Public Relations and Communication profession from the Stockholm Accords point of view. The Stockholm Accords are an attempt to reflect Public Relations and Communication Management practice as it stands today and to provide a global common ground for the practitioners.The method used for this study is a quantitative research method conducted by a web survey answered by more than 400 Swedish communication managers. The questions posed were examining these managers view of their profession compared to the Stockholm Accords.The research shows that the Swedish way of implementing communication in the organization broadly corresponds to the Stockholm Accords when it comes to internal and external communication. However, there are some areas where Swedish communication practice diverges from Stockholm Accords. The issues which link governance, management and sustainability to communication have a much wider distribution of responses.

The aim of this Masters´ thesis is to examine parenthood, gender and equality. The analysis is based on the novel Bitterfittan. The primary theoretical points of departure are Judith Butler?s theory about doing gender and Yvonne Hirdman?s theory about the gender system, the hierarchical order and the separation of the sexes. I use Lisbeth Bekkengen?s thesis in which the nuclear family is seen as an institution which is upheld by two structures; that is the social relationships man-woman and parent-child, and also by two discourses; on the one hand a notion that fathers and mothers are principally different and on the other hand the child focus.

The wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) has expanded across Europe and Sweden in the last decades. It is a generalist species which utilizes a variety of habitats, and its presence has been shown to have both positive and negative effects for people and the landscape they are in. The abundance and increase of wild boar has previously been shown to differ between counties in Sweden, but there have been few explanations as to why. In this study, I investigated correlations between the per capita rate of change (r) among wild boar populations in Sweden and a variety of different habitats on the county level. I also investigated if fragmentation per se or in certain habitats could be associated with the wild boar?s per capita rate of change. My results show that fragmentation/diversity per se was not correlated with wild boar r.

This Bachelor Thesis looks at the cooperation between the Swedish civil society and theEuropean Union (EU), and it aims at evaluating Swedish civil society organizations' influencewithin the EU's development work on policy level. It focuses primarily on eight civil societyorganizations, and it is based on empirical material collected in Stockholm and Gothenburg,Sweden. The material has been analyzed using three theoretical frameworks. The firstdetermines whether the structure of the EU allows bottom-up influence, the second looks atthe communication between the EU and civil society organizations, and the third assesseswhether the civil society has the ability to influence the political agenda within the EU?sdevelopment work.Conclusions of the thesis include determining the complex structure of the EU as a mainobstacle to influencing the EU's development work.