Introduction: Each year 1200-1300 patients are diagnosed with head neck cancer. Treatment that involves radiotherapy can cause severe side effects for example trismus that affects quality of life.Purpose: To study health-related quality of life in patients who have undergone radiation treatment for head and neck cancer and participated in a intervention group who received training intended to prevent trismus or in a control group who received standard treatment.Method: This is a prospective study in which data is collected from 66 patients participating in a randomized study aiming to evaluate a training program to prevent trismus. Thirty three participated in the intervention group and thirty three in the control group. Both patient groups assessed health related quality of life (HRQOL) with EORTC QLQ C30 and QLQ-H&N35, at start and end of the radiation treatment, and at 3 and 6-months after completing radiation treatment.Results: There is no difference between the intervention and control groups regarding symptoms, functional status and global health, except for intake of nutritional supplements.  For both groups almost all scales measuring HRQOL deteriorated under the radiation treatment. However, 3 and 6 months after end of radiotherapy HRQOL had improved and had returned to the baseline values.

The purpose of this essay was to study how youths think about their youth and future. Our intention was to study in which order of priority today's high school students in Helsingborg ranked family life, education, career and vagabonding. We also investigated what the term adolescence meant to them.Our main questions were how our respondents looked upon their youth and their future. In which way did they give priority to family life, education, career and vagabonding and why did they give these priorities? Which meaning did the respondents lay in the term adolescence?The study was based on interviews with seven young people, studying at a communal high school in Helsingborg.

The society of consumption exposes us to a lot of information, where advertisement constitutes an extensive part. Due to its expanding, advertisement receives a natural and obvious space in our everyday life. This study aims to investigate how social and cultural values can be mediated in advertisement. The focus has been put to ideas related to health and fitness in the advertisement of power drinks. The thesis takes social constructionism as a starting point, and combines image- and critical discourse analysis in purpose to analyze the pictures.Sociology of consumption, construction of identity, lifestyle and everyday life all constitute an essential part of my analysis.

The purpose of this essay is to study the public debate on the subject of creationism, the belief that there is a creator of all life on earth. The study is focused on creationism in different forms in schools and the more general discussion of creationism as an alternative to the theory of evolution. The overall question is what should be taught as the origin of life: Evolution or creationism in various shapes and forms? The essay consists of an overview of previous research in both the USA and Sweden, and an analysis of argumentation on the issue in newspapers. A comparison is made between the USA and Sweden.The analysis of newspapers shows that there are some arguments for different forms of creationism but there are considerably more arguments against creationism.

Our curiosity was awakened when we became aware that many social workers use "mindfulness" methods in their profession. In this study, we used qualitative methodology in our desire to examine and understand why the mindfulness approach, with its roots in eastern philosophy, is becoming established in society at large and, simultaneously, being used in the social work field. We were interested in when and why social workers choose to use mindfulness with their clients. Our prior research has revolved around development and use of methods in social work, and on the human reaction to stress.We conducted seven semi-structured interviews, which incorporated four comprehensive questions:1. Why has the mindfulness method become established in the social work field and in the culture in general?2.

The aim of this degree project is to find out how people who have grown up in families with addiction problems have experienced their childhood and how their adult life has been affected by this. With the help of qualitative interviews with four grown up children to addicts, knowledge has been gained about what was experienced as problematic during childhood, what was beneficial and compensatory as well as how they feel today. The results have shown that their childhood was affected by a deficiency in the ability to parent, weak networks, adjusting, responsibility, a feeling of being left out and few positive experiences. Factors that have been protective are: important people, interests as well as attitude. In adult life many habits from childhood remain.

In this essay I trace the historical theme in Djuna Barnes?s Nightwood, stressing the importance of the concept of forgetfulness in the text. Read alongside Nietzsche?s On the Use and Abuse of History for Life as well as his later thoughts on genealogy, the novel can be seen to concern itself with that same dilemma of history that he articulates in his philosophy. That is: how not to be overburdened by historical knowledge to the point where it petrifies life and prevents any real and novel action, and how at the same time, to make oneself conscious of ones own historicity, so as not to be governed to much by the past.I argue that Robin inhabits what Nietzsche would call the unhistorical state, whereas the other characters, in contrast, struggle with their relation to the past.

This essay is a study that contributes to the larger research question ?Why do farms shut down?? The subject was chosen because it is a relevant problem that needs to be studied more. This study's boundary is to investigate the reasons for decisions leading to the farms at the Torstuna community, Fjärdhundra, changes in any activity scale or the outlook of the entire farm. When a decision is made, there are usually several reasons behind it and it is these reasons which this essay is aiming to study. The question "What are the reasons for the elderly to live on the farm even though the farm is not cultivated by them?" is also covered in the study.

The purpose of this qualitative study has been; how social bonds are interlaced between the social worlds contained within the analytical division of ?outside Internet? and ?within Internet?. What happens with the social bond as the individual oscillate between this analytic bisection? This purpose raises important questions of the use of Internet in everyday life.A new stance is taken toward studying the Internets integration into everyday life. The focus is adjusted to the importance of emotions.

In the essay the author examines how pilgrimage can be used as a tool to radicalise democracy in a late modern society marked by neoliberalism. Applying a dialectic perspective on social movements the essay puts forward how the pilgrimage movement Pilgrim?s Walk for Future, administrated by Church of Sweden, is working in line with the historical pilgrimage theology - a modern critical ecclesiology- to mobilise political action to prevent climate change. The result of the study shows how PWFF meet the neoliberal hegemony with a mobilisation of alternative values beyond the order of capitalism, in line with Christian theology and tradition. The mobilisation is made possible by new forms of identifications with oneself and the social world that meet a modern power/knowledge- regime based on rational thought, and which questions norms and practises by paying attention to their negative effects on nature and on human life in general.

In recent years, the Swedish railway track system has been neglected in terms of capacity and maintenance. To adapt the existing system to current traffic load there is a great need for extensive improvement and maintenance. Shortcomings are especially occurring on older embankments running over soft subgrades. To select the most suitable method for reinforcement of the embankment, it is important to evaluate different solutions from a life cycle cost perspective. In long-term perspective, it is often shown that a method with low investment cost causes a higher maintenance cost and a shorter technical lifetime.

The society of suburbs is frequently discussed in media, which often focus on the problems related to these areas. The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine how Swedish contemporary youth literature may contribute to create, strengthen and articulate social representations of the society of suburbs. The analysis is based upon six youth novels published during 2003 to 2007. The theoretical framework consists of two parts and is based on Anthony Giddens? theories about late modern society in which the youth novels in our study take place, and those living conditions that this society creates.

Aim?Rekryteringsgruppen? (RG) is an organisation that through co-operating with the National Health service aims at optimizing the ability for physically disabled persons to rehabilitate. RG is a non-profit organisation ?using physical and mental exercise for disabled people, mainly neurologically disabled persons.? One of the goals that RG wants to achieve is ?that the target group will be able to live such an active and independent life as possible?. As no previous studies have been done in order to review the adaptation of RG:s work and its effects on the disabled, the purpose of this paper is to examine spinal cord injured individuals perception of independence concerning situation of life, ability to function and physical activity.MethodData have been collected by using three questionnaires.

The aim of the study has been to examine how young men from Stockholm construct "Masculinity". This has been done by examining what men think is an ?ideal man?, what "makes a man a man", which expectations they meet as men and how the life of a man differs from the life of a woman. This has been examined through three semi-structured group interviews with the total of ten men. The results have been analysed with Raewyn Connells Theory of Masculinities, the idea of ?Doing Gender? by Candace West and Don.

Syftet med studien var att ta reda på om det går att predicera medarbetares livstillfredsställelse, psykosociala välmående och upplevd relation till närmaste chef utifrån chefers emotionsperception och emotionsreglering. Detta gjordes genom att 38 chefer utförde ett datorbaserat emotionsperceptionstest samt besvarade Emotional Regulation Questionaire. Deras närmaste medarbetare bestående av totalt 213 stycken fick sedan besvara en enkät bestående av delar från Satisfaction With Life Scale, SF-1 och QPS Nordic. Studiens huvudresultat visade att generaliserat kan resultatet från emotionsperceptionstestet och det självrapporterade användandet av omvärdering av känslor hos chefer förklarar 28 % av skattningarna på Satisfaction With Life Scale hos medarbetarna. Resultaten diskuteras i termer av att chefer skapar en positiv atmosfär på arbetsplatsen, identifierar sociala problem och löser konflikter effektivare när de är skickliga på emotionsperception och omvärderar sina känslor..