The aim of this study was to measure the castration coverage and the attitudes among people towards castration in an area in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, where a castration program has been running for a few years. Another aim was to review the literature to examine the link between castration coverage and rabies prevalence. Two areas (Area 25 and Area 23) in Lilongwe were studied through standardized household interviews. In Area 25, a non-governmental organization had been castrating dogs weekly to twice weekly for free for 3 years. In Area 23, no official organization had done castrations, and this area therefore acted as a control in the study.

Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI) är en metod utformad för att bedöma och klassificera föräldrars förmåga till omvårdnad utifrån beskrivningar av förälderns subjektiva upplevelse av och relationen till sitt barn. Föräldrars inre representation av omvårdnad har visat samband med barnets förmåga att skapa en trygg anknytningsrelation. WMCI har visat stor användbarhet både i forskningssammanhang och i klinisk verksamhet men är tidigare inte prövad i Sverige. Syftet med denna pilotstudie är att pröva metodens användbarhet på en svensk population. Tretton föräldrar, sex pappor och sju mammor, som är förstagångsföräldrar till fullgångna och för tidigt födda barn har intervjuats med WMCI.

Den här uppsatsen är skriven för att ge en bra insyn över hur Las Vegas drygt hundraåriga historia har sett ut genom ett Experience Economy perspektiv med inriktning THEME:ing. Uppsatsen kommer granska vilka viktiga historiska händelser staden varit med om och undersöka dem via ett THEME:ing perspektiv. Information som har samlats in till denna uppsats kommer från litteratur och filmdokumentärer om Las Vegas historia och The Experience Economy. Vad bidrog till att den lilla ökenstaden kom att bli en av USA:s mest besökta städer och idag har en population på över två miljoner? Hur har staden agerat när det dykt upp möjligheter för tillväxt? Resultatet av denna uppsats visar att Las Vegas har haft flera stora händelser att jobba med genom åren och anpassat sig och sett dessa som möjligheter till tillväxt istället för hinder.

The need for second language learning is increasing in today?s multicultural and globalized society, and adult studies are becoming more common. Teachers must encourage all students, and all schools need to promote equality. Motivation is one of the most important factors for positive learning and progress, and it can be helpful for second language teachers to know more about this subject. The aim of this study was to examine which motivational factors that influence adult immigrants to learn Swedish through SFI education in Sweden.

When discussing local development attention is often given to the problems involved. Factors like decreasing population and inadequate infrastructure are two examples. Local politics has, however, lately been argued to have possibilities to affect its own development and its chances to achieve growth. Some of the most important factors from this debate are to make a community attractive for people and companies, committed leadership, the local business world with entrepreneurialism and a good business climate. These factors serve as a starting point for this discussion where focus is on the possibilities to achieve growth on the local level and the politics that is used for this purpose.To illustrate the chances to affect local growth I apply the theoretical perspective of regime theory and thereby examine the governing coalitions "power to" govern and not "power over" as the earlier theoretical perspectives in the area.

Mental illness is today the leading cause of long-term sick leave and insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout are among the most common conditions. The aim of the study was to investigate the stability of these conditions and how this is influenced by gender and age, as well as the extent to which these states are risk factors for each other. The participants were a random sample (n = 2336) from the general population in the age of 18-79 years. The results showed that stable illness was more common among women than men, and that stable illness decreased with aging. The stability itself was not affected by gender or age. Relations between the conditions were bidirectional and they constitute major risk factors for each other (odds ratios, OK = 2.37 to 6.46). The largest risk factor for a condition is, however, previous occurrence of the same problem. Previous burnout was found to be a significantly larger risk factor for future burnout than previous insomnia for future insomnia (OK = 9.63 and 5.74, respectively). The results suggest that insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout, despite their differences, are similar regarding symptoms and underlying causes. The importance of early interventions to prevent comorbid conditions which are more complicated and more difficult to treat is emphasized..

Detta arbete undersöker användningen av evolutionära algoritmer för framtagning och utvärdering av byggordningar i RTS-spel. Syftet var att undersöka om just evolutionära tekniker kan uppnå lika bra resultat som skriptade byggordningar då evolutionära tekniker oftast är billigare att utveckla.För att undersöka denna problemställning utvecklades en applikation med en experimentmiljö och en Artificiell Intelligens (AI) med evolutionär algoritm. Denna applikation och AI användes sedan för utvärdering av framtagna byggordningar.Resultatet antyder att evolutionära tekniker kan uppnå lika bra kvalitet som de skriptade byggordningarna.Något som krävs i detta arbete är fördefinierade skript för byggordningar för att köra evolutionen men något som skulle vara intressant att kolla på är coevolution. Med coevolution hade det varit möjligt evolvera fram byggordningar utan dessa färdiga skript genom att köra evolutionen mot individer i samma population..

Due to political decisions regarding the Swedish school, public and independent schools booth face the need topromote themselves in the quest for new pupils. This study aims to, from a communications perspective, examine how four selected upper secondary schools address their target audience; the pupils?to?be, on their homepages. Additionally, I intend to investigate whether, and if so, how, said addressing can be connected to the different target groups applying to the schools in question.The questions asked in this study regard the way in which the selected schools describe themselves on their homepage; how do they use the textual and visual content to address their audience, and can there be disagreement between the meaning of the text and that of the image? To answer these questions, I use a theoretical base made out of visual communication and semiotic as well as rhetorical analyses.The methodological procedure is a qualitative approach on the matter, allowing me to understand the ?what? of the content on the homepages, as well as the ?how? it?s being communicated.

Fantasy literature has a rather strong position in countries with an English-speaking population but not in Sweden. The supply of fantasy in Sweden is much smaller than that in for example United Kingdom. Does this affect the Swedish readers of this genre? If it does, how does it affect them? The aim of this thesis is to find out how a few fantasy-reading students at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science get hold of the fiction they want to read and who and/or what influence their decision of which book to read. In order to avoid confusion we are also going to try to find out how they define fantasy since it varies from person to person what is included in the genre.

The aim of this study is to combine queer theories with quantitative methods. In social sciences, queer theories are being widely and increasingly used. Quantitative method is also widely used, and as a traditional method it can be regarded as a cornerstone in social sciences, sociology in particular. However, the two perspectives, queer theories and quantitative method, seem at a first glance to be very different in their understanding of social phenomena. Queer theories have, with some exceptions, mainly focused on qualitative research concerning such phenomena as sexuality, while the field of science is quite diverse.

Today's research on animal assisted interventions (AAI) has focused on the positive effects on humans. Dogs used for AAI are an expanding market, but the research on this area hasn't followed the increasing use. The few studies on dogs in this field mostly observed their cortisol-levels and are very ambiguous. I have observed the behaviour of dogs working with AAI compared to when they are off-duty to see how they are affected by their work. Their handlers where also told to make an assessment of the dog's emotions during the session.

Title: To sell the country of Lagom: a study of the Swedish Institute?s re-branding of Sweden and impact on the swedish citizens Authors: Rebecca Dahl & Ellinor Thungren Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to study the Swedish Institute?s branding of Sweden. We have explored if the branding is consistent with the picture that Swedes generally have of themselves and Sweden, and also looked at which consequences differences in this picture may have. Method/Material: Semiotic analysis and interviewMain Results: The results of the thesis shows that SI?s branded image of Sweden agree with the picture that Swedes have of themselves and Sweden.

Examensuppsatsen syftar till att undersöka eventuella samband mellan homosexuella mäns psykiska välbefinnande och självobjektifiering, konformitet med stereotypa maskulinitetsnormer, trivsel i den sexuella minoritetskulturen samt ålder. Syftet är ytterligare att undersöka eventuella skillnader i konformitet med maskulinitetsnormer och självobjektifiering mellan män som trivs i gaykulturen och män som inte trivs. En Internetbaserad enkät besvarades av 1113 män i åldern 15-40 år som i huvudsak identifierade sin sexuella orientering som homosexuell. Deltagarnas välbefinnande var lägre jämfört med män i en oselekterad svensk population. De män som inte trivdes i gaykulturen skattade en lägre konformitet med maskulinitetsnormer kring sex och en högre konformitet med maskulinitetsnormen heterosexuell självrepresentation jämfört med de män som trivdes.

Confrontation naming is commonly used in speech and language pathology to diagnose neurogenic communication disorders and evaluate naming ability. The existing Swedish assessment instruments for adults consist of pictures depicting nouns. In this study, parts of the instrument An Object and Action Naming Battery were used, containing pictures depicting both nouns and verbs. The study?s purpose was to explore the degree of difficulty in the material, based on the naming of the participants, and examine whether different variables correlate with the results in confrontation naming.

This Bachelor Thesis is entitled ?Swedish parental leave and gender equality. Effects on women?s conditions on the labour market?. Through our empirical results in conjunction with economical and sociological theories, this Bachelor Thesis attempts to answer the questions: 1) Why are the claims for Swedish parental leave unevenly distributed between men and women? 2) Does the uneven distribution result in discrimination of women on the labour market? 3) How do different designs of parental leave scheme influence women?s conditions on the labour market and which possibilities are there to change these conditions through changes in the design? We make use of case studies from Denmark, Iceland and Great Britain, which work as basis for policy implications for the Swedish parental leave scheme.