The purpose of this essay was to describe how individual members of the self-help group Al-Anon discuss the importance and the influence the group has/have concerning their own lifestyle and self-image. To find answer to this I carried out qualitative interviews with five female members of a local Al-Anon group and later on analyzed the interviews using various concepts based upon the symbolic interactionism. I have mainly used concepts as; role-taking, significant symbols and referencegroup. Through the analysis of the interviews I have seen that the respondents self-image and thereby also their self-esteem has changed since they became a part of their local Al-Anon group. I have also noticed changes in their behaviors in their way of life.

Starting out as a minor form of amusement, the game industry has become one of the most lucrative andsuccessful in the entertainment business competing against giants such as television, movies and music.As the internal competition within the developer community grows companies work hard at discoveringnew ways to attract and keep customers. By having a playcentric approach focusing on user experiencethey hope to achieve that goal. This thesis describes the process of designing a game with focus on theplayer. We apply the concept of flow on game development and investigate through research throughdesign if we are able to create a game that keeps the player in flow.Play tests showed several elements such as control issues and too difficult challenges early in the game,affecting the possibility for players to experience flow while playing. These negative factors came to becalled flowleakers.

In recent years, more and more people have started to live double lives. Blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have created conditions so that we increasingly live virtual lives on the Internet. The gathering of people in this way entails both risks and opportunities for businesses. This study aims to explain how the phenomenon of social media has affected trade and service companies in a marketing and communication perspective. The idea for the essay came to us after we had observed how different behaviors in companies? concerning social media could vary a lot, and how we felt that this affected our personal view of the brands.

This essay will analyse how Asperger?s syndrome and autism spectrum disorder is made in two municipal high schools. I have interviewed school personnel and analysed the schools? policy documents and diagnostic manuals. In this essay AS and ASD are being deconstructed as political and ideological object and I analyse techniques in school, that makes these objects to subjects.The school?s mission is to foster and educate pupils to become desirable citizens and at the same time its aim is to provide an equivalent school.

The aim of this study was to examine which norms are applicable and how they are reproduced in two sports organisations. More specifically the aim was to find out how the leaders worked with gender roles and what message the organisations give out to young people. And at the same time, find out if there are similarities and differences between two different organisations, regarding norms and gender roles.  The study was based on observations and interviews. The observations were made during and after training in an ice hockey team and two gymnastic teams for girls nine to thirteen years old. The interviews were conducted with seven leaders and one senior ice-hockey player.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using more promotion material to enhance the in-store communication of sales promotion. In the retail industry today the research regarding the benefits from using various in-store promotion materials is limited, thus this study was carried out to bring clarity to this subject. The study is carried out in two pharmacies and the design of the study was to add more promotion materials to one store, while keeping the other store in its normal condition and then let the stores change conditions after one week e.g. latin-square design. The data collection of this study consists of four different methods: sales data, a questionnaire with 182 customers, an observation study of 300 consumers and an eye-tracking experiment with 41 participants.

The diegetic game world places high demands on how it is designed. It is common that game developers wants to create a deeper player immersion and some developers believe to achieve this by integrating HUD elements into the game world. To find out how digital games can rely on the design of the game world, we performed user studies on beginners who have very limited experience of playing digital games. By observing the beginners, we could discern the visual aspects in the diegesis that helps players understand the game rules and objectives because the beginners won`t make their choices based on previous gaming experiences. If players encounter a variety of difficulties to understand the rules of a game, then it will less likely be a successful game.

This field study examines how politically active radical feminists have reached their position in a group called Sällskapet. The aim of the study is to examine different paths, with the purpose to gain understanding of how to become a politically active radical feminist. Also, processes of social recognition on the field are examined; what is recognized and what taste preferences and behaviors gain a lower value? The different paths to the feminist position have been examined through a qualitative method consisting of a mixture of interviews and participant observations. The question if the position in Sällskapet requires specific experiences has been analyzed through Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical framework, with a particular emphasis on the concept of habitus, symbolic- and cultural capital.

The ever-growing e-commerce brings many opportunities for society's consumers and businesses. Digitization has strongly contributed to these opportunities and has, among other things, facilitated the search for information and increased the range for the customer. While the opportunities are many, the increased consumption has also brought consequences. The increase in consumption contributes, among other things, to quantities of deliveries and returns as well as increased waste, all of which results in environmental destruction. The issue of sustainability is very topical today and is influenced by almost everything today. In connection with the markets changing, the consumers' behaviors and expectations also change.

Abstract PurposeThis thesis aims to focus on how master students administer scholarly articles after they have found them. The purpose of the study is to detect how and to what extent people administer their articles from a personal information management-perspective (PIM).MethodTo answer the research questions, a web-based questionnaire survey was distributed which was announced to around 2,000 master students from different universities in Sweden. Most of the items in the survey focused on individual storage methods. The respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their different information administration behaviors on a seven level Likert-type-scale. Subsequently, items concerning specific information administration behaviors were posed, followed by questions on the respondent's sociodemographic status.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of deliberate self-harm in a Swedish University population.Method: A random sample of first year students at University of Kalmar was invited to participate in an Internet-based survey in the autumn of 2007. A total of 139 (53,1 %) completed the anonymous survey.Results: The results showed that 25,2 % (n=35) of the students reported having engaged in some kind of deliberate self-harm at least once, and deliberate self-harm was endorsed by 7,9 % within the past year. The most frequently procedures to self-harm were to tear, carve or pinch self, cutting skin and hitting self on purpose. 37,1 % reported that they had told no one about their self-injurious behaviors and 36,4 % significantly reported that they had no one they trusted and who they could talk to if they were concerned about something. Students with self-injurious behavior were also more likely to report a history of emotional, sexual and/or physical abuse, alcohol and drug use, cut classes and questioning their sexual orientation.Conclusions: Findings suggest that self-harm is associated with risk factors and that self-injury is not only associated with adolescence but also with adulthood.

Detta examensarbete undersöker navigering för grupper av autonoma agenter i dataspelsmiljöer. Genom att kombinera olika styrbeteenden och beräkningsmodeller utvärderar arbetet vilken av dessa tekniker som är mest effektiv med avseende på tid och vägval i trånga spelmiljöer. En experimentmiljö har utvecklats som implementerar fyra stycken tekniker och utvärderar dessa i tre olika miljöer med 10 respektive 50 agenter som navigerar genom miljön. Som grund använder samtliga tekniker ett vägföljningsbeteende och ett flockbeteende. Det som skiljer teknikerna åt är vilken beräkningsmodell som används samt att två av teknikerna använder ett väggundvikelsebeteende.

The popularity of video games has been boosted by the rise of user-generated live streaming platforms, and the biggest of them all is Twitch. The popularity depends on Twitch alignment of live streamed video games. The stream is created by a player who broadcast and streams the video game online. The video game can then be watched by a viewer that is interested in the video game. In every stream there is an implemented live chat that allows the viewer to interact with the streamer while the stream is online.

The aim of this paper is to explain how the European Union?s common strategy for theCommon Foreign- and Security Policy (CFSP) will change with the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon. A comparative case study and qualitative method is used. On the basis of Smith?s theory of institutionalization we will analyze two member states: France and Denmark.

The spread of digital photography has created major changes in the previously stable Swedish photofinishing market. We investigate how companies act to survive in the face of technological change, through our research question: What strategies have actors in the photofinishing business chosen during the changeover from analog to digital photofinishing? Using a deductive method, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 actors in the photofinishing business. Innovation management studies innovation from a number of perspectives, describing effects of innovations on the competitive ability of established actors, and on the value of their resources. The companies were not prepared for the speed of the change.