The aim of this study is to get a better understanding of the Iranian regime. My theory is that the Iranian regime is a semi-dictatorship, based on the soul fact that semi-competetive elections take place. The main question this thesis tries to answer is what characterizes the political construction of the Iranian regime and by what means does it implement its political goals. In trying to answer this question the case of Iran is applied to four specific typologies being, semi-dictatorship, military rule, single party rule and personal rule. The aim has not been to categorically analyze if the Iranian regime matches one typology or the other perfectly, as this is seldom the case when it comes to typologies.After analysis of the four typologies, the conclusion is that the Iranian regime utilizes semi-competitive elections to give a guise of democracy, as is in line with a semi-dictatorship.

Increasing attention has been given to men?s experiences as victims of intimate partner violence in the Western world, mostly in quantitative research, within different research fields. The aim of this research paper is to explore men?sspecific experiences of intimate partner violence in heterosexual relationships in a Swedish context, through a gender perspective and with a qualitative research approach. The paper begins by briefly mentioning key findings in existing quantitative and qualitative research, focusing on Sweden.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

This study intends to illuminate women?s experiences of their own self-harm. Self-harm is mostly associated with women and research shows that women mostly are over-represented. This study describes women?s experiences about their self-harm but also how they perceive the elements around them during their illness.

AbstractThere is a lot of confusion when it comes to defining Special Education. An example of this appears here by a statement from Assarson (2007) "Special Education initiates a special pedagogy, but contains no innate sense of what is the special component in it" (p. 52, authors? translation). This study is an attempt to clarify the elements of the concept.

To encourage and increase the motivation to physical activity by using new information and communication technology, in order to change our behaviours into a more healthy lifestyle, could be one approach to promote public health. In our study we examine how gamification, which is about implementing classical game design elements from the computer world in a non-gaming context, can be a tool to increase the motivation for physical activity. Since similar studies already have been done we chose to focus on analyzing how different player types from Bartle?s taxonomy can be affected by the usage of a gamification application. A group of students were therefore picked and during a two weeks? period they used the application Fitocracy where they logged their daily excercise.

Detta kandidatarbete har sin teoretiska utgångspunkt i Matthew Potteigers och Jamie Purintons begrepp landscape narrative, landskapets narrativitet. Arbetet syftar till att undersöka hur planerare genom detaljplanering och detaljeringsgrad kan arbeta med begreppet. För att kunna komma fram till ett svar har intervjuer, granskning av plandokument och en fallstudie använts som metod. Landskapets narrativitet kan liknas som en berättelse om och i landskapet, men som inte har en början, mitt eller slut. Landskap är en process som hela tiden är föränderlig.

Många företags användande av konsulter har under de senaste åren ökat och det finns luckor i forskningen kring denna yrkeskategori. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida individuella och arbetsrelaterade faktorer hos konsulter påverkar uppfattning av fullföljande samt omfattning av psykologiska kontrakt i relation till en uppdragsgivare. Deltagarna var 172 konsulter, från tre konsultföretag, som besvarade en enkät delvis hämtad från projektet PSYCONES. Resultatet visade att konsulternas individuella samt arbetsrelaterade faktorer påverkade det psykologiska kontraktet och att det som påverkade mest är grad av tillit gentemot uppdragsgivare, antal arbetade timmar i veckan samt ålder. Dock påverkade inga av faktorerna kopplade till konsultrollen uppfattning av fullföljande samt omfattning av psykologiska kontrakt.

External shopping malls in the context of urban sprawl have, according too much of the previous research, had a negative connotation when it comes to urban planning and a sustainable society. In recent years, some of this research on the issue has changed course towards that it might be some positive opportunities and elements in this development, given that it follows certain patterns. This latter development is what we have chosen to look deeper into in our study, Sustainable urban sprawl.The shopping mall Allum in Partille center has been the subject of this case study, to explore how people's shopping habits and travels in connection with these purchases has been affected by the establishment of an external shopping mall from a sustainability perspective.The method we used was a questionnaire distributed at workplaces in Partille. The collected data were then analyzed by using some of the dominant urban planning theories, for thus underpin our analysis. We have supplemented the study with a collection of information on existing and planned shopping centers in Gothenburg region.Our study shows that external shopping centers located in already developed areas, with an existing social structure, can help to create a more compact city with fewer and shorter shopping trips, and more sustainable transport choices when purchasing goods and services..

This thesis puts together general guidelines for the design of outdoor environment at nursing homes for people with dementia. The goal is to give the residents a greater quality of life with the garden.The garden must be safe and secure while offering places for fellowship or retirement and experiences of joy and competence. The plant material and other elements in the garden are inserted to stimulate the senses and to inspire to different activities. The paper describes the health promoting effects of nature and gardens by referring to scientific studies. These studies encompass the impact of nature on all human beings as well as how the outdoor environment affects our target group, elderly people with dementia. An essential part of the work focus on the conditions in a garden for people with dementia, on the contact between residence and garden and the access to surrounding life. Eventually, the general guidelines are applied to a real building project ? the Vega project in Lomma,a new nursing home for persons with dementia.

By conducting interviews, studies as well as scanning the current scientific landscape, this paper examines the opportunities of increasing current capacity within the public transportation system in Stockholm with simple financial means for the benefit of the travelers. The paper focuses on the central station of the subway system and how adjustments of processes carried out in relation to the turnstiles could increase performance within areas of interest, given the preferences of the travelers. The theoretical framework of the paper includes models from the field of capacity management as well as theories related to the pedestrian behavior. Applying these theories and models to the collected data, the paper derives some main conclusions. First of, people using the public transportations system, and especially the subway, consider speed and dependability as the most important performance objectives for the caretakers of the public transportation system, SL and MTR to master.

The purpose of this essay is to identify how violence against women is understood in the government's policy action plan called Handlingsplan för att bekämpa mäns våld mot kvinnor, hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck samt våld i samkönade relationer. The main issue that the study is based on, is whether there is a feminist gendered understanding that permeates the action plan. To examine this, I have formulated two more specific questions:     - What is considered to be the main problem of men's violence against women?     - What is considered to be the reasons for men's violence against women?    The empirical material of the study consists of the government's action plan. With the help of Carol Bacchis discourse analytical approach "What's the problem approach", important patterns in the material have been detected.

Today older people?s health and life quality are current topics of conversation in society. The number of old people is increasing and their health is deteriorating, that is why there is a need of new ways of meeting their necessities. In this study we have tried to illustrate heads of districts reasoning concerning pets? significance for old people in special housing.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

The estate of Rydboholm is situated in the municipality of Österåker, north of Stockholm, Sweden, and has a long history dating back to the 14th century. Rydboholm was the home of several families of great national importance, such as the Finsta and Vasa clans. However, since the 1500s, the noble family Brahe was the most influential; leaving its mark on the castle and surroundings. The gardens of Rydboholm consist of two parts; The first is from the baroque era, dating back to the 1660s, and the second is an immense landscape park completed around the year 1800 by Magnus Fredrik Brahe. During his travels through Europe, Magnus Fredrik Brahe was influenced by the new English-style gardens and he brought a large collection of literature on the subject back to Sweden, still kept in the library of Rydboholm.