Our study illustrates the nature and characteristics of the virtual world Second Life. We have identified that the online community aims to satisfy hedonistic needs through social and conspicuous consumption, for online use only, concentrating on socially accepted identity construction..

The research within the management control systems-field and more specifically performance management has been rather shallow and not much has happened the last decades besides the balanced scorecard. The researchers see a lack of studies focusing on the effects of an integrated performance management system and also how it affects the different hierarchical levels and the tasks to perform.We decided to perform an essay with case study-characteristics by looking at both the strategic and tactical level at Volvo Group, or more specifically Group Trucks. We performed three different interviews, one at the group level and two at the division level. The aim was to see what effect an integrated performance management system had on the tactical level (i.e. the divisions).Our findings and corresponding analysis suggested that Volvo was a rather centralized company in order to get the performance management system to work by enabling a ?weekly control?.

This essay aims at understanding the experience of the use of ayahuasca, and similarities and differences between interview protocols and socio-cultural identities. The work is based on field studies conducted in the Peruvian Andes, in the village of Pisac September to November 2009. What has emerged is that the experience does not seem to be dependent on cultural manifestations as much as it is dependent on general human cognition. Theories have been applied on an empirical phenomenological descriptive study. Various brain activities, along with mental mechanisms contribute to a deeper understanding of the findings in the descriptive analysis.It seems that the cultural differences, which I have classed as typological in the phenomenological study, mostly are expressions of meaning for the informants.

The empirical data used for this master thesis, consists of eight manuals with the main purpose to help students evaluate information resources found on the web or Internet. The purpose is to elucidate the discourses and investigate those textual characteristics, which figure in the investigated manuals. The method used is a discursive and linguistic approach, with a power/knowledge discussion applied to the results. The analysis identifies, among other things, the production and consumption of the investigated texts, and that the manuals function as a reflection of the relationship between the participants in the situation, the sociocultural practice of the institution and its identity..

Among the Indigenous cattle breeds in Indonesia, the Bali cattle is the most preferred by small farmers. The Bali cattle is a beef breed, and is considered to have several advantageous characteristics and to be well adapted to the country?s harsh environmental tropical conditions with drought and rain. The main aim of this project was to phenotype of Bali cattle from different locations in order to identify and document diversity within the Bali cattle breed based on their observable characteristics, to compare cattle from different areas and production systems to see the effect of management on phenotype. In this study, 107 cows and bulls of the breed Bali cattle, from Kalimantan, Sumatra, Lombok and Bali were phenotyped.

In Sweden, selection for leanness in pigs has been going on for almost a century. This sometimes results in gilts and sows being too lean and consequently in a risk for reduced reproduction and health status. The Swedish recommendation includes that gilts should be mated after seven months of age, after one documented oestrus, at 120-140kg live weight and with a backfat thickness of 16-20mm. Five gilt producing herds were visited and records of age, heart girth (for weight estimation), body condition (visual estimation), backfat thickness and exterior were made. The same records were also taken in four gilt buying herds on newly purchased gilts.

Law firms are defined as knowledge-intensive companies. Due to the dependency regarding the resource of knowledge among the firms employees and to the fact that they often are categorised as a type of professional service firm. The purpose of this study is to investigate the different types of profitsharingsystems as a form of reward with focus on the theoretical differences and effects of the True Partnershipmodel and the Stockholmmodel. In addition to these models we will look into the Human Resource processes of; recruiting, integration, retaining and development of employees. The main purpose of the study is to examine the theoretical level on how the profitsharingsystems effect different Human Resource processes and through the knowledge of these connections using this as an analogy when to analyse other law-firms and knowledge?intensive company?s.

Every year, reports are published that shows how universities fail to meet the demand from companies who are looking to hire students with solid communication skills. At the same time, the importance of communication for effective leadership is constantly increasing. Today, many business schools around the world states that they strive to educate future business leaders and have therefore realized the importance of teaching the skills of communications to its students. The majority of Swedish business schools, however, have not yet made communications an essential part of their curricula. This indicates that most business students in Sweden today, do not receive the toolkit needed to take on leadership roles.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

Around 85 percent of the total population in Sweden today lives in an urban environment. This means that the nature within the urban areas has come to play an important role for the human well being. At the broader picture, the nature within urban areas is profitable in many ways. It is therefore important for the municipalities around in Sweden to work for sustainability within the urban areas. Linköping adopted an environmental policy, in year 2001, from the delegate of the municipality.

The study describes the problems with analysis of real estate companies after the introduction of IFRS. With the introduction of IFRS (2005) and specially IAS 40 the real estate companies get the ability to appreciate its real estates to real value. With the difference in the accounting, grows the question if it has become some differences for analysts with analysis and valuation of real estate companies. We also look into how well this new standard effect the real estate companies from the view of the accounting quality and its characteristics..

The harbour in Arvika is closed down and the industry that has been established in the area is now beeing wound up. A deepened comprehensive plan for the area is under progress in the municipality. The intentions are for instance that the harbour should be integrated with the city and that Arvika is facing a lake should be more apparent from the city center. The harbour should also contribute to a more attractive city. These intentions have hence been the starting point of my undergraduate theses, which has resulted in a proposal on how to develop the harbour. During the process I have analysed the city image, how the area is used today and the public places in the city centre.

The dairy market will change importantly in the coming years. The quota system, which has regulated the European dairy production, will disappear in 2015 and the European dairy market will then be importantly affected by the volatility characterizing the dynamic of world prices. Besides this, the global demand of dairy products is expected to increase due to the growing world population. Farmers in countries such as the U.S. and New Zealand, when compared to Swedish farmers, show greater familiarity and experience with risk management tools.

The project is a thesis which intends to strengthen the form language and increase the user friendliness of an International Moth. This is a single handed dinghy with only one sail. It sails on two hydrofoils and receives a very high speed compared to its size, and are therefore often referred to as ?the Formula One on water ?. The result is a new concept where the aerodynamic forces have been used to stabilize the boat and relieve the hydrofoils.

Today more effective computer programs are in use, regarding design of geotechnicalconstructions. There is a risk that the theoretical background of the computerprograms, its limitations and the signification of the choice of soil parameter isforgotten when the computer programs become more user-friendly.This Master thesis deals with simulation and analysis regarding three computerprograms, FEM-design, with the addition Raft, Plaxis and BE-slab. Comparisons aremade for settlement and maximum moment in a concrete-plate. FEM-design is a threedimensional FEM-program, foremost created for design engineers. Plaxis is a twodimensional FEM-program, intended for geotechnical engineers while BE-Slab is aBoundary elements program in two dimensions that is mainly used by designengineers.