Mass media is becoming more and more personalized and despite common ideas it could actually be a good thing. Instead of affecting the actual content of news coverage it might only have an effect on the way in which news are presented. Famous politicians more regularly become symbols and synonyms for their parties or for the government and are being used to create interest in the beginning of articles.Those are the results from a content analysis of the newspaper coverage of the Swedish parliamentary election in 1976 and 2006 in which the scientist categorized each article in one of four ideal types, counted quotes and analyzed whether personal names were interchangeable with party names without affecting the content. All three methods showing that it is the presentation, not the content, which has been personalized.At the same time, psychology-science tells us about the human brains associative learning processes, where memorizing becomes far more efficient when the information can be connected to an already known person. Increased personalization of news might therefore increase the political knowledge of the receivers..

After emergencies involving chemical spills it is of great importance that correct measures are taken with short notice, both for the security of people and in order to minimize future environmental consequences. The RIB-unit at the Swedish Rescue Services Agency initiated this study, the aim of which is to propose changes to the existing chemical transport calculation tool: Chemical Spill 3.4, included in RIB - Integrated Decision Support for Civil Protection, so that it can be used for decision support as well as in preventive work. A rough estimation of chemical transport in the subsurface is considered being of great importance when making decisions during emergency response operations.The proposition presented in this report is a non site specific chemical transport model which is designed to give a rough estimation of NAPL flow in homogenous isotropic soil shortly after an instantaneous release. The model can be used at two levels; both in situations without access to information on subsurface properties, and with more accuracy in situations with knowledge of the included parameters. For that reason the user can choose among predefined alternatives or assign the parameters a numeric value to increase the quality of the model output.

The aim of this study is to explore hiphop music as an aspect of youth socialization and the relationship between music creation and identity. The study is conducted through five semi- structured qualitative individual interviews. Our theoretical starting points are Putnam?s (2000) bridging and bonding social capital symbolic interactionism. We also have used a model of learning presented by Fornäs, Lindberg and Sernhedes (1989).

The aim of this study is to examine the services offered by the public libraries in the context of distance learning students. I wanted to examine if there has been any discussion among the public libraries on how the new needs and demands affect them. To get a premonition on the development in Sweden I have focused on the public libraries in the province of Blekinge, which in many ways can be looked upon as precursors. Interviews have taken place with the distance learning students contacts at the local public libraries, the responsible librarian and a distance learning organiser at the local university college, the county library consultant and one of the chief librarians. I have reached the conclusion that no thorough discussion on the far-reaching aspects has taken place.

Denna studies syfte är att studera förskolebarns lärande om lövsprickning och hur förskollärare kan underlätta detta lärande. Metoden som används är learning study, vilket kan sägas vara en form av aktionsforskning. Learning study är en metod för att studera elevers lärande, det är praxisnära forskning som knyter samman teori och praktik. Det som analyseras är inte undervisningsmetoder, utan hur de kritiska aspekterna som underlättar förståelsen av lärandeobjektet presenteras. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är variationsteorin som har många likheter med den utvecklingspedagogik som präglar förskolans läroplan.Förskolan ska sträva efter att barnen förstår naturvetenskapliga fenomen och sammanhang.

This Master thesis aims to illuminate nine librarians relation to professional information. This is accomplished by focusing on five questions: How do they communicate and acquire professional information, and how do they evaluate its relevance? What are their experiences of continuing professional education? What are their opinions on the academicalisation of the education? Is it possible to perceive something of the librarians professional project in the informants statements? What is their relation to the academic subject of library and information science and the research on the area? The analysis is based upon the interviews with nine librarians and carried out with profession theory in order to study the role of theoretic knowledge in our participants professionalisation processes. We also use different context oriented theories to study the contextual dimension of information need and seeking. The conclusions of this Master thesis reveal that the communication between the theory of library and information science and the practice need to be improved if we want to see more of an evidence-based librarianship.

This thesis presents the results of the implementation and evaluation of two machine learning algorithms [Baz98, GB97]based on notions from Rough Set theory [Paw82]. Both algorithms were implemented and tested using the Weka [WF00]software framework. The main purpose for doing this was to investigate whether the experimental results obtained in [Baz98]could be reproduced, by implementing both algorithms in a framework that provided common functionalities needed by both. As a result of this thesis, a Rough Set framework accompanying the Weka system was designed and implemented, as well as three methods for discretization and three classi cation methods. The results of the evaluation did not match those obtained by the original authors.

This essey discuss competence development for the employees in a unit of the Swedish police authorities. The purpose with this survey has been to show an understanding for how this unit within the Swedish police authorities works with competence development and what kind of competence investments they carry out and also why competence development is important in their organisation. To answer the purpose of the survey and the questions a qualitative method has been used remaining interviews with five involved respondents working in the investigated unit. The result shows that needs for competence development are made clear during meeting for personal development and during the local educational council inventories. Competence development for the employees is prioritated for the policemen comparing to the civil employees on account of that the policemen have a demanding work and they have to develop their work all the time because of the resisting circumstances.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay is to get knowledge about the consequences that speech-defects bring for children in pre-school ages. I got interested in this matter when I, during my teaching practice, got in touch with children carrying this specific disorder. I chose to apply qualitative interview as a method to investigate this and as a starting-point I used these aspects: How does speech-defects affect learning, understanding, friendship relations, and development in general?I interviewed three pre-school teachers in two different schools. One school in a smaller district and the other one in a middle-sized town, in the middle of Sweden.

The purpose of the essay is to study and create understanding to the bilingual students' perspective on their linguistic skills and the use of them as resources in a scholastic context. A qualitative method has been used to collect empirical data, based on the experiences and perspectives of the students. Bilingualism is defined and past research, which has shown how their bilingualism has influenced them, has been linked with this study. Definition of mother tongue and the meaning of mother tongue tuition for student immigrants' development have been discussed. This research has shown that the students feel their bilingualism is a natural occurrence.

The comprehensive aim of the essay is to discuss the abilities of developing individual, communicative and cooperative skills, related to The Swedish National Agency for Education, for pre-school children in Montessori and Reggio Emilia-inspired pre-schools. The importance of the choice of pre-school for lifelong learning is discussed and examined. The two educational profiles are presented and the theories of communication, collaboration and individual work are the basis for the analysis of the results. The collection of empirical data is done through observations and interviews with pre-school children. First, the informants construct a fantasy animal on their own and then together with a partner.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka kunskaper en grupp pedagoger utvecklat, genom att delta i learning study i matematik. Svenska elevers kunskaper i matematik har blivit sämre. För att vända trenden har regeringen utlyst projektbidrag för att förändra undervisningen och förbättra resultaten. I uppsatsen studeras hur ett projekt i form av learning study, kan bidra till en skol- och specialpedagogisk utveckling i matematik. Utifrån användandet av fokusgrupper, parintervju och enskilda intervjuer studeras pedagogernas uppfattningar av learning study i matematik.Resultatet av uppsatsen visar att pedagogernas kunskaper består av redskap, bland annat i form av vikten av att fokusera det som lektionen handlar om.

Background: Patients with borderline personality disorder represent a large group in healthcare who are struggling with painful emotions in life. Caring should be based on strengthening health processes by focusing on the patients, but research made by the patient's perspective has shown that this population rather felt that their health processes was counteracted, than promoted. The patients felt that the nurses displayed a negative attitude towards them. Attitudes are defined as a system of values, emotions and actions towards others. Aim: the purpose of this study was to highlight the attitudes and experiences of nurses towards caring for people with borderline personality disorder  Methods: A study on the literature based on nine scientific papers was performed. The articles have been analyzed, systematically coded and compiled into a new unit. Results: This study shows that nurses have an overall negative attitude towards patients with borderline personality disorder.

Evaluation of sustainable work within real-estate companies is a relativelynew way of working and the number of companies starting towork with this routine increases every day. Chalmersfastigheter is areal-estate company providing faculties for universities. The company ismainly focusing on decision-making and outsourcing.The aim of this essay is to evaluate decision-making processes andensuring that the right decision is made, with other words, evaluatingthe decision and not the result from the decision. By identifying whatsustainability means for Chalmersfastigheter and in which processesdecisions are made, an evaluation is easily made to see if every decisionis based on the three aspects of sustainability; ecology, economy andsocial. The result from this evaluation will highlight how Chalmersfastigheter prioritize in decisions concerning sustainabledevelopment.This study is based on the ISO 14001 standard and the definition ofsustainable development presented in the Brundtland report.Akademiska Hus is used as an example to present how another companyin the same business has operationalized sustainability.

The aim of this paper is to find out to what extent outdoor mathematics is used in preschool and elementary school. I have chosen to use interviews to find it out. I made my interviews in five different schools in Karlskoga, with teachers in preschool and in first and second class. Focus has been on the positive effects in outdoor activities. The paper also deals with some of the prerequisites necessary to organize such activities.