At two nursing homes for people with dementia a qualitative study was performed. The purpose was to investigate the therapy dog?s meaning to people with dementia from their perspective. Two women and five men with dementia were interviewed, everyone being somewhere between 60 and 87 years of age. All but one had previously owned a dog at some point in their lives.

We investigate the effects of various types of word-of-mouth (WOM) messages on consumer bahavior. The message is varied along two dimensions where one is valence and the other is whether or not it contains an explicit call for certain behavior or attitude change. We use an experiment in the form of a web-based survey. Five different scenarios were designed to represent neutral, positive, and negative WOM. The latter two came in two different versions - one with a recommendation and one without.

Product development is essential for all companies that want to survive in competitive markets regardless of the characteristics of the product that the company sells. Companies that sell products within product categories which can be seen as bad, also need to develop their products in order to remain competitive. If these bad products add a positive attribute, for example that they get organic, a contradiction within the product arises and they get incongruent. This thesis investigates which effects that follow a launch of an incongruent product. The thesis also examines if these effects are affected by the strength of the brand under which the product is launched.A total of 240 respondents participated in an experimental study where product incongruity was manipulated for two different product categories, where one well known brand and one unknown brand were examined in each category.

Assessing the emotional state in animals is important in order to establish the quality of their welfare, therefore it is important to investigate under what circumstances animals experience these emotions and to find indicators of their existence. The aim of this thesis was to detect possible behavioural indicators for positive emotions in dogs. These behavioural indicators could be helpful to increase both dogs? and humans? overall well-being in today?s society since they could help e.g. dog owners and caretakers to interpret behaviours displayed by dogs and their intentions so they can respond accordingly.The subjects used were 9 research beagles and each dog participated in three different treatments, assumed to be experienced as positive situations, where communicative interaction was initiated with the dog by engaging in 1) physical contact (P), 2) verbal contact (V) or 3) both physical and verbal contact simultaneously (PV).

The dependency of fossil fuels has to decrease in order to reduce emissions of green house gases. Wind turbines generate electricity with low environmental impact, but the local opinion in Sweden is sometimes an obstacle to new developments. The acceptance of nuclear power increases at the same time. Mining uranium is once again on the agenda and prospectors are currently drilling for uranium. This cross-sectional study deals with acceptance of wind farms and uranium drilling.

The purpose of this thesis was to figure out the feelings that librarians felt towards the e-books at the library. And if it affects their work at the library, especially from a financial point of view. The reason I decided to do this study is because the subject of e-books has become bigger in the last couple of years, and that I got the feeling that the librarians didn?t like them that much. So I did six interviews with six different librarians from different libraries to see if they felt the same thing or if they are in fact positive towards them.The results I received from my study were that the librarians are positive to the e-book.

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers and school-leaders attitude to the school library. Both the cause of and the consequences of these attitudes are examined. In order to fulfil my purpose I have examined this through both literature and empirical studies. I have interviewed the headmaster, the school librarian and two teachers at two comprehensive schools. As theoretical framework I have used David Loertschers taxonomy containing theories about the levels in an ideal school library and Miles model of school development.

Föreliggande arbete utgör en delstudie i projektet Automatiserad telefonuppföljning inom Kriminalvården. Projektets övergripande syfte var att undersöka tillämpbarheten av Interactive Voice Response (IVR) som en modern metod för utvärdering, övervakning och påverkan av intagna som blivit villkorligt frigivna från ett fängelsestraff. IVR är en metodik baserat på automatiserade telefonintervjuer som bl. a innebär att en dator har programmerats för att ringa upp, ställa frågor, registrera svar och ge feedback till klienterna. I tidigare publikation från projektet undersöktes med hjälp av automatiserade telefonuppföljningar (IVR) hur stress och mående samt användande av alkohol och droger utvecklas under de trettio första dagarna efter avslutad anstaltsvistelse (Andersson et al, 2011).

Cattle production systems are changing to bigger intensified systems with larger numbers of animals per farm and more free range systems while at the same time employing fewer people. Aversive handling has been known to affect cattle production negatively for many years, but lately scientists have started to focus more on what positive effects gentle handling and positive human-cattle interactions may have on beef and dairy production. Fear can cause high stress in production animals and this can contribute to not only reduced production within beef and dairy cattle, but also increased risks for accidents and decreased animal welfare. Therefore, by reducing the fear cattle experience of humans, it could be possible to increase production, decrease accidents and increase the welfare of the animals. Reducing the animals fear and stress can be done by simple means, such as walking and talking calmly around the cattle, associating humans to positive feelings (such as feed) and stroking the cattle?s body regions associated with social grooming.

In this study, we investigate various lighting applications in a virtual environment, where we compare between light based in naturalism (natural light) and pictorialism (artistic light). The purpose of this study is to gain further knowledge in lighting, which is increasingly important for game graphics. Theory are examined to gather information and recommendations on how to use various light settings that convey different emotions. We then use this information to illuminate the environment that we have built. The environment is presented in Unreal 4 for respondents who are allowed to move around freely in the environment.

Tissue factor (TF), a 47 kDa glycoprotein, is the initiator of the extrinsic pathway of blood coagulation and consequently of the upmost importance when damage to blood vessel occurs. The source of TF in circulation has been investigated. However, the source of TF is still not clear. One theory is that platelets express and increases the expression of TF after stimulation and the aim of our report was to investigate whether platelets really are a source for TF in circulation.Using specific primers for TF mRNA, platelets in plasma from healthy volunteers and from patients suffering from cardiac infarction were analyzed by using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Gel electrophoresis was performed after amplification of TF mRNA to verify the results.The samples were negative for TF when using real-time PCR and the few positive all had cycle threshold (Ct) values above 35.

The public relations business has grown from almost nothing to a large international industry the last decades. Throughout the history the industry has struggled with a lot of critique and public relations has become a negative symbol for manipulation of information. Because of this negative view of the industry and the medial change taking place, the purpose of this study is to investigate how two different generations think about public relations. More accurate, the study will through a qualitative interview study explore how young people from a highschool in Luleå and elder people from Luleå township thinks about pubic relations, and most imortant why they have this particular view. By creating four focus groups, two with men and two with women, this also enables a comparative study between the gender. The focus groups were later analyzed and compared to two selected groups of theories on public relations, the theories were positive and critical theories compound in two categories.

Parenting and parental leave in a career context is a highly topical subject in which discussions about gender equality and corporate discrimination against parents occur daily. Media has recently raised the theory of parenting and parental leave as having positive impacts on personal development, such as creativity enhancement, which may promote the individual's work performance. Despite the subject's significant value for society and organizations, no scientific research is to be found. This paper examines how an individual's creativity at work is affected when becoming a parent and if parental leave has any contributory effect. Furthermore, the paper identifies and scrutinizes four creativity theories that may help explain these changes in creativity.

The purpose of the study is to investigate into professional knowledge of the bilingual teachers, compared to monolingual, and what benefits they give to pre-school. Qualitative method was used to get an understanding of informant´s perspective on bilingual teachers. The informants believe that bilingual teachers are able to understand all the children. A bilingual teacher can make the children feel secure. If one has a positive attitude toward bilingualism, the bilingual children also show a positive attitude that in turn contributes to learning and development of the language..

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is a hereditary disease that in Sweden is especially common in German shepherds. The Swedish German shepherd club has currently no plan of action for decreasing disease prevalence in the breed. The purpose of this study was to review existing literature about the disease and also to perform an inventory of the disease in the Swedish dog population. Special focus was laid on the German shepherd breed. The inventory was later compared to an unpublished inventory of the disease with data from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences from 1997. During the period 2002-06-01 to 2007-09-26 (ca 64 months) 2961 blood samples were analyzed for cTLI. 274 samples were positive (cTLI .