The market offers more and more products that are claimed to have medicallypositive effects (like increased blood perfusion etc.) due to their magneticproperties. The objective of this study was to investigate if blankets containingpermanent (static) magnets have a greater impact on cutaneous blood circulationthan ordinary blankets without magnets. Eight standard bred horses were used in across-over study. The cutaneous temperature was presumed to reflect blood flowin the skin and therefore thermography and local thermistors were used to indicatechanges in circulation. Baseline values were registered before the blanket wasapplied.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the use of social media by the Swedish Police for democratic purposes. The idea of citizen empowerment is closely related to the development of new communication technologies such as social media. Yet many studies indicate that governmental institutions rarely make use of the assumed potentials of social media.In this study, the democratic potential of social media is derived from Habermas normative concept of deliberative participation. Operational definitions emphasize discursive equality, interactive reciprocity and external impact. The analytical framework is combined with qualitative text analysis to highlight the conditions of interaction between representatives of the Police and citizens.In conclusion: the democratic potential of social media, from a Habermasian point of view, is to a significant extent neglected at the expense of its strategic advantages.

All over the world, scientists agree that to succeed with a conservation project, it is important to have a good relationship with the local people. If they do not receive a good impression of the project, they will not be willing to collaborate and the project will probably fail. According to previous studies, there are different factors affecting attitudes to conservation, like the level of education of the participant. Many studies have shown that the higher education the people have, the more positive attitude they have to adjacent conservation areas. Economical factors are also important, it is often stated that having more money results in a better attitude.

Background: There has been a process of de-institutionalisation and mental health care re-forms in Sweden. Social services are, according to the law, responsible for helping persons with mental illness to live a life like others and to participate in the community. The aim of the study was to describe the culture in one of the social services adult day care center for social relations and activities in Stockholm. The aim was also to focus on the importance of the adult day care center for recovery and empowerment from the participants´ perspective. Methods Observations in the adult day care center were combined with four interviews with regular participants.

To end up as an immigrant in an unknown country and to try to participate in the majority society means both psychological and physical difficulties where their whole life is changing. Gemensamma Krafter is a prevention changing work in a housing area in Borlänge. It works among other things as a meeting place for people from different cultures. The aim with this study was to describe and to get increased understanding for the lives of a number of immigrant women who lives in Borlänge/Sweden and which importance ?Gemensamma Krafter? has had for them.

Children's Need In Focus (BBIC) is a processing and documentation system used in child welfare cases to investigate, plan and monitor interventions. The BBIC has had a breakthrough in Sweden and out of the country's 290 municipalities, there are 284 that use the system daily as a tool in cases involving children. The purpose of this study was to examine how social workers experience the BBIC as a working system and what strengths and weaknesses there are in the BBIC concept. We wanted our study to examine how the BBIC could possibly enhance the quality of childcare matters, but also how the BBIC could potentially increase children's participation in cases. We have performed qualitative interviews with eight social workers who work in four different municipalities where the BBIC is applied daily.

The first of May 2007, a decision from the Swedish Board of Fisheries about a Swedish prohibition of eel fishery got legal force. This prohibition is one of the most challenged decisions that the Swedish Board of Fisheries has taken. In the town Karlskrona in the southeastern part of Sweden the prohibition has got a lot of attention in local media. Early in the debate, it was clear that the actors active in the archipelago of Karlskrona were against the prohibition. The aim with the master thesis is to investigate different actors' opinions and view of the prohibition of eel fishery, today's management of the resource and how the actors' think that the communication between the actors involved in the management of eel and eel fishery works and what need to be changed to be able to develop a sustainable management of the eel in the future.

An increasing global tourism offers great opportunities for Sweden as a tourist destination. However, an attractive destination requires competitive destination marketing strategies. Tourist destinations often include a complex network of stakeholders of small and large en-terprises that represent both the public and private sector. One condition for successful des-tination marketing is that all of these stakeholders collaborate in their marketing to create an integrated and powerful image. Another important aspect in terms of increasing the des-tinations competitiveness is that the local tourist companies are "export-oriented", in order to ensure that international tourists are looked after appropriately.This study has focused on the destination marketing of Stockholm.

This work is meant to show how memory can work within a smaller society when it comes to folklore and local history. What is remembered, how it is remembered and why it is remembered. Sprung from the older collections of folklore within the selected area - which is Glaskogen in western V?rmland - the purpose is to look at different types of memorizing and how it can work. The purpose is also to analyze some of the folklore from Glaskogen via narrative analyzing methods of Palmenfelt, Labov and Young, and also to understand Glaskogen from a cultural heritage perspective, looking at the valuation process and attitude towards the immaterial heritage.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the local debate on the Music library in Västervik to see what arguments, pro et contra, that constitutes it. Since its opening the Music library has faced regular threats of being closed down. This is an issue interesting due to several factors, its lack of guaranteed public funding and relative importance to Västervik´s attempts at city branding being two. Using argument analysis, the thesis proposes that the local debate shows traces of both instrumental and culture centered, intrinsical views of the Music library, and that the instrumental view holds both negative and positive poles of opinion while the intrinsical counterpart is one-sidedly positive. Further, the thesis argues that this is in line with a long since documented shift in cultural politics towards a more market oriented discourse..

The structure of the thesis is based on opportunities to attract businesses to the region, the need of establishments in the region and benchmarking with establishment strategies of other cluster initiatives. The identified opportunities are the local business relationship with ABB, the prerequisites of life quality in the region and the availability of financial support. Further on has a number of opportunities to be developed been identified; diversification of the existing businesses, an expansion of the cooperation with universities and to simplify the contact with local authorities. Challenges that HVV is facing is: creating a more dynamic labor market, secure long-term labor supply, spread the image of the brand HVV and finally putting HVVs geographic scope. Two of the identified needs of establishments are strategically important: to establish a third-party logistician and commercializing systems for distributed generation and energy storage.

Through a sociocultural perspectivethe purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers look at quality development in preschool and how they perceive their participation in this development.I have used a qualitative method based on five interviews with preschool teachers from three different parts of Sweden. I used an interview guide with open questions. The interview answers were categorized in themes based on the responses which were most frequent. In the result I have been using an analysis based on these themes. The result showed that the preschool teachers consider that the leadership style affects their work.

In this study we have investigated how local journalists in Kalmar think when they choose their sources to interview. We have also studied several factors that can affect their choices of sources.We have interviewed eight news journalists from the two largest local news papers Barometern and Östran in Kalmar.The journalists were asked about the sources they often use as interview objects. They were supposed to tell about how they think when choosing sources and define which sources they commonly use. There are different factors that can affect the choices and we have narrowed them down to ethics, source critics, credibility, stress, hard production conditions, public and their own interest and if they consider themselves to be individualistic or controlled by the news desks. Furthermore the journalists were asked to characterize what changes they would make when choosing sources in a perfect world.All of the journalists had not reflected prominently on the subject of sources before our research.

ABSTRACT Background: The ward round is a collaboration between nurse, doctor and patient. A good collaboration and communication is essential to their interrelation. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate patients' comprehension in regard to integrity, information and participation during round. We also looked at differences about comprehension between men and women.  Methods: A questionnaire was answered by 34 patients in three wards at the University hospital in Uppsala. Results: The patients believed they could talk openly ?quite well? but they experienced it ?sometimes? disturbing to talk openly if other patients were in the room.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the use of social media by the Swedish Police for democratic purposes. The idea of citizen empowerment is closely related to the development of new communication technologies such as social media. Yet many studies indicate that governmental institutions rarely make use of the assumed potentials of social media.In this study, the democratic potential of social media is derived from Habermas normative concept of deliberative participation. Operational definitions emphasize discursive equality, interactive reciprocity and external impact. The analytical framework is combined with qualitative text analysis to highlight the conditions of interaction between representatives of the Police and citizens.In conclusion: the democratic potential of social media, from a Habermasian point of view, is to a significant extent neglected at the expense of its strategic advantages.