The purpose of zoos has changed over the decades. From being menageries where wealthy people showed their collections of exotic animals to today?s zoos where science, conservation and education has become a central part of their work. Education in zoos gives them the opportunity to spread the knowledge about ecology, biology and biodiversity to the general public. Their aim is to change the public?s attitudes towards our wildlife and raise awareness about the threats that exists against our planets biodiversity.

This study was carried out at Luftfartsverket (LFV Group, SwedishAirports and Air Navigation Services), AstraZeneca and Svenska Spel. The purpose of the study was to examine and compare how these companies work towards becoming, and maintaining to be, an employer of choice. Facts were sought about the companies and their work to become an employer of choice.To get a discerning and profound picture, a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews with twelve key persons in this work was conducted. The method Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used for analysis.The results showed that an amount of factors have an input on how attractive the employer is. Common were compensation and benefits, competence development, leadership, information and health-related activities.

Sammanfattning:Det finns olika valmöjligheter inom redovisning. Vilket val man gör styrs av vilket resultat man önskar visa. Det har just införts en ny lag som innebär att juridiska personer skall ta upp en schablonintäkt för sina periodiseringsfonder och vi bestämde oss för att undersöka vilka val företagen gjort och vilken betydelse olika faktorer har när de ska välja att sätta av till periodiseringsfonder eller ej.Vi valde ett deduktivt angreppssätt och de vetenskapliga teorier vi främst utgick ifrån var agentteorin och Positive Accounting Theory (PAT). Vi valde att undersöka om följande faktorer kan ha samband med vilka beslut man tar när det gäller periodiseringsfonderna: bonus till ledningen, företagens skuldsättningsgrad, storlek, bransch och ägarstruktur.Vi ställde samman en hypotes för varje faktor och i de fall vår ursprungliga rådata var kontinuerligt kvantitativ testade vi dessa hypoteser med hjälp av så kallade t-tester. I andra fall gjorde vi korstabeller med ?2-test.Från PAT är det endast skuldsättningsgraden som påvisar ett svagt samband.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how youths are described in certain written statements that are produced by the social services. The statements that this study has focused on, are those written with the purpose of serving the court with suggestions of treatment-measures when a person between 15 and 18 is suspected of having committed a crime. The main issues were: How is the content in these statements described and what do these descriptions tell the reader? Do the images of youths in the statements differ, depending on the degree of intervention for the suggested treatment-measure? The essay is based on a qualitative content-analysis of 50 statements and the material has been analysed from a social-constructive theoretical perspective.The study shows that the youths in the statements are described through descriptions that reinforces a positive or a negative image of the youth, and that these descriptions are described as either utterances or facts. Depending on the degree of intervention for the suggested treatment-measures, the information in the statements differ in that descriptions that are likely to reinforce a positive image of the youth are more frequent in the statements where no or less intervening treatment-measures is suggested.

Background: Since1994, the EU NickelDirective is limiting the release of nickel from objects that are in prolongedcontact with skin. Despite this, nickel is still the most common cause of contactallergy in industrialized countries. This could implicate that other productswith short contact to the skin, which are not restricted by EU´s legislation inREACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicalsubstances), could be a source of nickel or cobalt exposure. There is no limitfor cobalt release within REACH. To determine if there is cobalt or nickelpresent on the surface of a material and if metal can be released in contactwith the skin, there are quantitative and qualitative methods, such as the DMG(dimethylglyoxime)-test, the cobalt spot-test and a method for releasedetermination according to EN1811.Objectives: Laptops are not included in the REACH legislation.

During the last decade working with competence has emerged as a more strategically important area. Today the human resources in a company are considered a competitive advance and the HR-units play a significant role when it comes to HR-management. Different motives for investing in strategies that promote competence development and learning also exist. The purpose of this paper was to examine how the process of competence development was managed at a large global company. The empirical material consisted of four persons who were interviewed and the analysis of the material was inspired by grounded theory.From the analysis four major themes or core factors emerged as central to the interviewed persons' understanding of the competence development process; solid preparatory work in relation to competence development, communication, awareness of responsibilities and finally the taking action and evaluation of the action.

The object with this bachelor thesis is to illustrate if equality is present during the interaction between female and male players in the World of Warcraft with focus on the female players conception. The main question is: How does gender matter in the interaction between female and male players in WoW? This question is particularly interesting because WoW is in its own construction neutral in regards to gender in the aspect that gender does not hinder or benefit your avatar when it comes to the avatars development or possibilities. This bachelor thesis describes the views three of female WoW players and how they perceive the interaction with male players with focus on equality. The informants? personal thoughts and experiences are described.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka elevers tankar, känslor och upplevelser av studier inom det individuella gymnasieprogrammet. Enligt tidigare forskning och enligt teorierna framgår det att elever som går det individuella programmet har negativa tankemönster, upplever psykisk ohälsa och depressiva symtom. I undersökningen har både kvantitativa och kvalitativa data analyserats. En enkätundersökning har skickats ut hos eleverna och två intervjuer har gjorts, en intervju med en lärare och en med en kurator. Resultatet visar höga procent av negativa tankemönster, depression och psykisk ohälsa hos eleverna.

Förhållandevis lite har skrivits om vilken inverkan olika väderfeno-men har på människan. Däremot finns mer forskning angående mil-jön och vikten av dagsljus. Den här studien ville undersöka om det ligger någon sanning i att vädret verkligen styr både vår fysiska och mentala hälsa. Vad är det egentligen som gör människan så engage-rad i ett fenomen, är det vädret i sig eller ?bara? föreställningar.

AbstractWorking with child and youth welfare is one of the most difficult challenges a social worker might face in the field of social work. Those who work with child and youth welfare are more exposed to stress and burnout than other comparable human service occupations. Research links the prevalence of stress and burnout to several key variables, such as demographics, working conditions and personality factors. In contrast, even though social workers in this field face many negative work-related problems they report a high job satisfaction. The aim of this study is to examine how uplifting and straining experiences affect social workers, who work with child and youth welfare, through the use of The Critical Incident Technique and interviews.

Many of the schools premises are neglected and the physical environment has not been prioritised. Instead the focus is set on scientific learning methods and pedagogic. The need for an environmental shift has not got an essential place in the governing documents for schools, although the focus on school premises should be suited to the purpose of the activity and for the pupils needs. Today the interest and the need of research within the physical environment is evermore increasing. The Swedish Work Environment Authority, present in their activityplan for 2006, that the schools premises and equipment is not adjusting to today?s activity and it is in bad condition that can lead to work-related injuries.The purpose of this essay is to bring to light a different pedagogic train of thought around the surrounding environments importance, for students learning and to compare these with our study of a selection of classrooms and what the teachers to these classrooms consider about the environments importance.

Disturbances, such as fire and wind, are important for saproxylic beetles (= beetles depending on decaying wood) to gain substrate in boreal forests. Clear-cutting is an example of a man-made disturbance. Measures such as prescribed burning have been made to resemble natural disturbances. The aim of this study was to see which clear-cut characteristics are important for the occurrence of the saproxylic beetle Upis ceramboides. This is a species favored by open habitats and is said to respond positively to forest fires. The distribution area in Sweden for this species has decreased during the last two centuries and I wanted to see if there were differences between clear-cuts in Hälsingland, where it is very rare and decreasing, and Norrbotten where this study was conducted.

AbstractBackgroundParkinson?s disease is a chronically not curable progressive disease that leads to different degrees of disability. Controlled studies on how patient education influences subjective health in Parkinson?s disease are lacking.AimThe aim of this study was to examine the influence patient education had on drug requirements and on subjective health status of persons with Parkinson?s disease.MethodologyA short form of Health Survey, SF-12, was used to measure perceived health. SF-12 was administered before and one month after patient education (intervention group; n= 48), and in waiting list control (n= 48).

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to discover the driving forces in top athletes, concerning training, body image and social positioning. Furthermore the object is to study how important being fit is for social reasons in today?s society. The athletes have been interviewed face-to-face and described their personal drive regarding training, their goals and the significance of the sport. They have also described how they see the image of the ideal body that currently exists within the field of sport and society and how training affects their own body image.

The aim of this essay is to investigate and evaluate the arguments made by municipal politicians in Ulricehamn, regarding the planned Knowledge and Culture Centre. A part from the search for these arguments, I also investigated the attitudes among politicians regarding municipal culture investments in general. I furthermore investigated whether any national, regional, or local culture-political strategies were important in the local debate. The time frame within which the local political culture debate was investigated was from 1997 until present time 2002. The investigation methods used were partly a study of official documents such as political protocols, two articles from the local newspaper, and a clean copy from a web chat, and partly a qualitative study I sent a question regarding the planned Culture Centre to every political party active in the Ulricehamn municipal assembly.