What kind of international actor is the European Union and how shall we define it? These are questions that many have tried to answer often by addressing the apparent uniqueness of the EU itself. One of these theories is Normative power Europe. A theory whose main argument is that the EU is best perceived as a changer of norms. My aim with this thesis is to test this claim and to see if the Union should be regarded as a normative power.

Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

ABSTRACT Objective: The objective of this review was to describe the effects of low carbohydrate diets in people with diabetes type 2. Methods: Review. An article search was made in the databases PubMed and Medline. The search resulted in 17 studies. After review and analysis of the studies main results five categories were highlighted; bloodsugar levels, HbA1c, weight, lipid levels and antidiabetic medications.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is probably the world's most known andinternationally most respected document. The purpose of this study is to examine if the UDHRreflects universal values and norms and to assess its moral and juridical relevance today, 60 yearsafter the adoption. The literature used in this literature-based critical study is mainly written bythe academic elite of the discourse on Human Rights. By comparing these sources I have reachedthe conclusion that the UDHR is still today an important document because of its continuinginfluence on international lawmaking and because of the encouragement and aspirations tomankind in the never-ending struggle for the rights it represents..

Most pupils learn good reading strategies during their first years at school. Pupils who don´t do that will have difficulties understanding written data. As the pupils meet text filled with lots of data they will have difficulties understanding the written text. International studies show that the rusults of Swedish pupils are dropping. This issue got me thinking: What help is given to those pupils with difficulties so that their reading comprehension will increase? Are the teachers actively teaching reading comprehensions and in that case how and when? By observing two teahers of intermediate level, I wanted to find out how theachers help pupils with reading comprehension.

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the UN millennium development goals have influenced Sweden?s development policy. The research method that I have used is a qualitative text analysis and I have studied the ideas in governmental texts and millennium development goals reports from 1995-2008.My hypothesis is that the basic ideas that has symbolized Sweden?s development policy has not changed much since the adoption of the millennium development goals in year 2000. This hypothesis is based on different ideas that the basic perspectives in international development policy are rather constant.My conclusion is that many of the areas that are affected by the millennium development goals already are prioritized areas within Swedish development policy, for example poverty reduction and gender equality.

This essay was written in order to elucidate how the priests-to-be and working priests experience the preparation for preaching during their training and if their identity as preachers depends on their preaching; how they refer to rhetoric and what the preparation training looks like.There is no Swedish research within this field, and even the existing International studies concentrate mostly on writing preparation within other occupations, e.g. economics, health care and public sectors. These studies also show that there are several discrepancies between the university preparation for professional writing and speaking and the professional discourse.In order to carry out the investigation the author has interviewed priests-to-be and working priests and examined the syllabi for homiletics and rhetoric. The result of this analysis offers a better insight into the nature of the training in preparing sermons that Swedish priests obtain during their professional education. The author refers to the results of other scientific investigations concerning preparation for professional writing and speaking and concludes that there are similar difficulties within the priest training, e.g.

This master thesis presents a Model for Evaluating and Managing Interruption Risks in connection with Business Continuity Planning (BCP), developed for Swedwood International. The model consists of a template with instructions. The model should be easily understood and useful for establishing a plan for BCP. This is achieved by including the contents and procedure of BCP and the main supplychain risks in the model. The purpose of a BCP plan is to describe how an enterprise will return to business as usual after an interruption, e.g.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out how the Swedish authorities comply with international law by studying the protection of asylum-seeking children that are apprehended by Swedish authorities according to the legislation of LVU because of abuse or neglect and thereafter are deported together with their parents. The aim of this thesis is to find out if Swedish legislation and praxis is consistent with international law through the Convention on the Rights of the Child and EKMR. Would it be possible to increase the protection of these children through incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Swedish law, through a wider interpretation of the principle of non-refoulement or through more morality in the law? The thesis has been conducted as a literature study where the right-dogmatic method has been used to compare Swedish and international law. The theories by Dworkin about morality and law have been compared to Peczeniks right-dogmatic theories.The review shows that Swedish authorities are infringing article 2, 3, 12 and 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, when it comes to the protection of asylum-seeking children. The best way to increase the protection is to incorporate the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Swedish law.

AbstractAs human beings, we are all governed by our innate instinct that to kill another human being, or to just inflict pain on another, is to go against what makes us human. Still, it happens every day, far and near. Some of these killings happens in war-like situations, where atrocities against humanity occur. The international community has since the founding of UN in 1945, a duty to intervene where crimes against the human rights occur. This is a difficult task, because, in order to intervene and help those in need, the situation might postulate states violating states sovereignty.

AbstractPurpose/Aim: To describe in-classroom use of mobile phones amongst teenagers.Material/Method: The data was collected through as use of focus groups and field studies.Main results: The main findings confirm the findings of other studies on teens and mobile phones. Teens use their mobile phones for much more than just sending text messages and making calls, there are many different types of localized usages. There is also a strong emotional connection between the device, its content and the user.Keywords: mobile phone, teens, classroom, focus groups, observation, field studies, mobility..

To complete an overweight treatment program is associated with better weight loss. Previous studies have in principle focused on drop-out from the entire program, not individual parts of a program. Factors previously shown to influence the patients´ weight loss results are: frequency of individual meetings with a professional, the lack of social support from family or friends, the lack of motivation and in a few studies vacations. In several studies the drop-out patients have stated that their reasons for drop-out were dissatisfaction with the staff and the program design. Drop-out has also been shown to be connected with difficulties in adherence to the diet.

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

Over the past few years the Åland islands have attracted growing internationalattention as an example of how to successfully secure the position of a minorityregion, and in the current situation the government of Åland has an intention toextend the efforts of spreading the example of Åland. The purpose of this essay isto shed light on the political discussion about the example of Åland, andinvestigate the underlying political reasons for emphasizing the example of Ålandinternationally. Through interviews with leading politicians on Åland I analyzeÅland as a norm entrepreneur. The research shows that besides altruism, selfinterestis a factor behind emphasizing the example of Åland. The essay showsthat the theory of norm entrepreneurship also can be applied on an autonomousarea, but instead of influencing international organizations themselves, theautonomous area use norm entrepreneurship as a tool for influencing domesticpolitics..

We have made a suggestion for a map based search tool used with a database containinginformation on natural disasters. The database is being developed by NCO (SwedishCentre for Lessons Learned from Incidents & Accidents).We examined both Swedish and international examples of databases on naturaldisasters. The examples that we found were often hard to get the hang of, due to poorcompilation. The problem, that is typical of the international examples, is that the processof data collection is not standardized, as it is performed by different organizations andcompanies with diverse demands on and needs for the database. Therefore, to keep itsymmetrical, there ought to be only one department with the overall responsibility for anational database on natural disasters in Sweden.The natural disaster we based our study on was the flooding in Arvika in the year 2000.We inspected the availability of data about the flooding, and found it to be satisfying.Through contact with the municipality of Arvika, by mail and telephone, and a visit at theArvika municipality office, we acquired reports on the flooding and the joint rescueoperation that followed, and also GIS layers showing the extension of the flooding..