In this master thesis, I investigate four Public Librarys´ program activities. The purpose is to explore what the library program activities contribute to as a part of a well functioning democracy. The theoretical points, I have brought from political science. I assume three different ideals of democracy; electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberative democracy. All have different views on what can be characterized by a well-functioning democracy.My empirical material consists of library program guides, the libraries´ target documents and interviews with staff at the libraries who work with or have overall responsibility for program activities in their respective libraries.

Preschool is an important social arena for children. This might be the first time that children find themselves in a larger social context and create their first peer-relations. The aim of this study was to examine children?s peer-relations with particular focus on the acts of social exclusion and inclusion, and how children use different strategies to exclude and include each other. Another aim was to investigate how both verbal and non-verbal communication is used in these processes.This study has an ethnographic approach, and the use of video observation as a method enabled us to capture the children?s everyday interactions at preschool.Our results show that children use a number of different strategies to exclude other children that seek access to an ongoing activity to protect the interactional space that they already share.

Denna studies syfte är att undersöka institutionella demokratihändelser i förskolan utifrån följande frågeställningar. Vilka möjligheter ger förskolan som institution barn till individualistiska demokratihändelser? Hur kan förskollärare möjliggöra individualistiska demokratihändelser för barnen i förskolan? Hur kan förskollärare synliggöra individualistiska demokratihändelser i förskolan? För att möjliggöra ett undersökande av institutionella demokratihändelser i förskolan och för att kunna besvara studiens frågeställningar på bästa sätt har semistrukturerade intervjuer använts som metod. Fyra förskollärare från en förskola i en mellanstor svensk kommun har deltagit i intervjuerna. Resultatet visar att förskolan som institution ger barn goda möjligheter till individualistiska demokratihändelser under vissa förutsättningar. Vidare visar resultatet att förskollärare kan möjliggöra individualistiska demokratihändelser i förskolan genom att aktivt arbeta för en tillgänglig och tillåtande miljö med trygga barn. Resultatet för studiens sista frågeställning visar att ett synliggörande av individualistiska demokratihändelser i förskolan kan ske genom förskolans utvärderingar och dokumentationsarbete..

The purpose with this thesis was to study the special pedagogical perspectives that stood out in documents written by the special teachers in preschool. In order to maintain the thesis research questions a text analysis was carried out on the document ?Handledningssamtal? that was used by the special teachers in their contact with the teachers in preschool. The documents were analyzed based in the special educational perspectives and the results and measures from the analysis were divided into three levels; individual, group and organizational level. Finally a study of the connection between the analysis and the measures was carried out and the result was reported in a typology schedule inspired by earlier research.

Grasslands which have been actively managed for a long time and which in modern times have not been subject to cultivation such as fertilization are called semi-natural grasslands. These rare and species-rich areas hold an ecological, biological and historical value and if the management stops these areas will likely diminish. More effective agricultural systems and a declining number of grazing animals have in Sweden, among other countries, made semi-natural grasslands less valuable as foraging areas. Shrubs and fast growing plants rapidly colonize abandoned semi-natural grasslands, threatening biodiversity. The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of breed and season on diet composition, with special reference to four competitive species found in wet areas ? in cattle grazing heterogeneous semi-natural grasslands ? and thereby contribute to improved management of these areas.

Detta kandidatarbete undersöker science fiction, en av de större och vanligast använda genrerna inom medier såsom spel, film och litteratur, genom att studera dess undergrupper, de så kallade subgenrerna. Dessa är specialiserade versioner av genren i fråga och använder den inom vissa förutsatta ramar, exempelvis hur samhället ser ut eller vilken typ av teknologi det huvudsakliga fokuset kretsar runt. Genom att studera hur subgenrer är beskrivna i The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction kan man avgöra att de består av sex punkter: plats, tidsperiod, karaktärer, teknologi, narrativ och visuell estetik. Dessa punkter har använts som ramverk för att utveckla en ny subgenre; Mystech, där scenarier utspelar sig i vad som kan ses som en typisk fantasyvärld med magi och monster, men där dessa egentligen bara är teknologi majoriteten av de påverkade inte förstår sig på. För att demonstrera Mystech har två olika miljöer utvecklats, både i bild och skriven form.

The purpose of this study is to examine how two educators at a preschool that is located in a neighborhood south of Stockholm works with TAKK with children who has Down syndrome in a language promotion purposes. The aim is also to investigate what teachers think about using TAKK with children without special needs and children with Down syndrome.In this study, I used qualitative research methods. I've used both observations and interviews to get answers to my questions. The theories which I have used in this thesis is, socio-cultural perspective, including integration and segregated integration.In order to find out how the educators work with TAKK I have asked these questions:How do the educators work with TAKK with children with Down syndrome from a language development perspective?What do the educators express about using TAKK with children without special needs and with children who has Down syndrome?My conclusions to these questions are that the literatures I have read in many ways are consistent with how they work.

Syftet med denna studie att undersöka yrkesverksamma förskollärares förhållningssätt till den organiserade rörelselekens betydelse för barns kommunikativa lärande. Bakgrunden ger läsaren en litteraturgenomgång kring barns kommunikativa lärande och den organiseraderörelseleken i förskolan samt samband mellan dessa två faktorer. Dessa faktorer framhållsäven utifrånett mångkulturellt perspektiv och utifrån Lev Vygotskijs pedagogiska teori. Datainsamlingsmetoden som använts för att samla in relevant data utifrån undersökningenssyfte, är genom halvstrukturerade intervjuer med utgångspunkt i en kvalitativ studie. Totalt treintervjuer med kvinnliga, yrkesverksamma förskollärare har genomförts.

Sammanfattning Arbetets art: Examensarbete i Lärarutbildningen, avancerad nivå, 15hp.Högskolan i Skövde. Titel: Förskolebarns aktiviteter i sandlådan. En kvalitativ studie om barns meningsskapande i sandlådan ur ett naturvetenskapligt perspektiv. Sidantal: 27 Författare: Helena Jebens och Jörel Sandh. Handledare: Susanne Gustavsson. Datum: januari 2014 Nyckelord: Meningsskapande, förskola, sandlåda, naturvetenskap. Studien belyser barns möjligheter till naturvetenskapligt meningsskapande i sandlådan. Som pedagoger i förskolans verksamhet har vi dagligen sett barn aktivera sig i sandlådan, men inte reflekterat över vilket naturvetenskapligt meningsskapande som möjliggörs där. Vi har även i vår verksamhet uppmärksammat genom samtal med andra pedagoger att naturvetenskap upplevs som svårt och krångligt. Studiens syfte är att undersöka vilket naturvetenskapligt meningsskapande som möjliggörs i sandlådan.

Facilitated by the breakthrough of the internet, new ways of organizing internet-based projects that harness the power of the crowds are becoming increasingly common. Today there are ways of using the crowd as paid labour, as funders of your new project ventures and even for helping scientists doing science. Staying true to its traditional principles of objectivity and trustworthiness while asking the crowd to contribute, crowd generated ?Citizen Science? does not provide even the slightest amount of pay in exchange for the time and effort put in by their contributors. Surely there can not be many people willing to do such a thing voluntarily? Actually, practice is showing the exact opposite with contributions counted in their millions among the more popular Citizen Science projects.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

The information market is constantly changing. With new and improved information technology more people get access to more information faster. However, the number of people educated to handle information also increases. Business intelligence has for a long time been a well-known tool for companies to be competitive. Because of the increased access to information the competition between companies has intensified and more people have become aware of the advantages of business intelligence and how it can help them compete.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the research in the field of Knowledge Organization, during the period of 1990-2002, focusing on the subject and the epistemology of these studies. The result shows that studies concerning representation, e.g. subjects such as classification, indexing and bibliographic description, are the most frequently researched areas throughout the period. Classification was more popular in the beginning of the period, but later bibliographic description, mostly with studies on metadata, became more visible, together with a growing interest in information retrieval. The theoretical discussions in the studies focused primarily on document analysis and the organization of digital documents.

Humanity has always dreamed about a better world. These dreams has manifested themselves in the vision of Utopia - the good place, but also the non-existing place. Up until World War II man still wrote optimistic descriptions of this ideal world, and spread the idea through literature. In the aftermath of the atomic bomb and under the influence of the cold war, these publications seized to surface in literary surroundings. Despite this utopia did not die - it has only changed.

Rabbits today are used for different reasons. They are often held as pet rabbits but they also can be found at zoos, in laboratories and as a producing animal where their meat, fur or wool are used. All rabbits in Sweden are protected by the Swedish animal welfare legislation. For rabbits held as pets, in laboratories or at zoos there are more detailed rules or regulations that defines for example how much space the rabbit must have or how the cage should be enriched. For rabbits in the production there is no detailed legislation, which is a problem because their welfare could be hard to secure when the producers do not have any guidelines to follow. Rabbits are social animals and therefore they should have the company from either one other rabbit, or from the owner.