My essay explores how people talk about a woman´s supernatural ability in relation to normality and abnormality. In order to find this out I´ve made interviews with people inclose relations to Hildur Lawergren. Hildur lived all her life in Fole on Gotland where she was often interviewed in local papers and on the radio about her predictions on the coming weather. She used melted candles to make her predictions. The candles were melted down on Christmas eve.

Historically, men have always had a superior position over women, which has beenportrayed in all kinds of media representations. Visual communication is an importantpart of our daily life since the reality is reflected through images. The development ofthe Web has led to increased interaction opportunities, and new ways to communicate,mainly through pictures. Politicians have embraced this and use social media as a partof their daily work. They also use social media to portray themselves from a morepersonal angle, which has created a higher interest for their personal life.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how health care providers, working at care facilities providing maintenance treatment programs for opiate dependence, perceive and manage the legal framework governing the treatment. The study is limited to a few particular rules within this framework which over the recent decade have been the subject matter of debate regarding i.a. their alleged lack of relation to scientific research and their frequently disastrous implications for program participants. The empirical material consists of interviews with five respondents working at four different care facilities and has been analyzed by using Lipskys theory on street-level bureaucrats as policymaking agents. The results of the study show that the rules are looked upon and dealt with in a liberal fashion and that the primary loyalty of the maintenance treatment staff is clearly directed towards promoting the well-being of their patients and helping them reach their treatment goals rather than strictly following the rules..

This thesis is carried out on behalf of watermixer manufacturer Ostnor AB in Mora.The thesis deals with the area of Article Bound Instructions (ABI) at the company'sassembly department, regarding the layout and management routines involved withthese instructions.In the current situation there are problems with no uniformity in the manner in whichthe ABI is written, then referred to both the civil structure, images and specificityrates in the text.Another problem is that operators do not make use of the ABI that are available inthe current situation, and that there are no clear procedures for who has theresponsibility to write, update and change these ABI.During this work has several people that were identified as key personnel of thethesis held in order to get a handle on how the current situation of the variousobjects of the work looks like, and to examine different desires about the future ofthese should look like from the different subjects perspectives been interviewed.During the work, a number of deficiencies, including that the current program that isused to write the ABI, Lotus Notes, do not possess near the prerequisites for being asimple program to deal with when writing the ABI, which is a condition since wishesare about to put the responsibility for the ABI generation to the departmentsoperators, since their main task is to assemble and do not bother with a program in acomputer.The result of this work has generated new layout and structure of the ABI, designedto be used continuously in the assembly for evaluation, routines regardingresponsibility of the ABI for the Department of Production Engineering (PT),procedures for how the ABI should be written regarding amount of detaileddescriptions in the text and use of pictures.In addition, proposals for further work and improvements has been developed basedon experience during the work and presented at the end of the report..

The pig industry suffers economical loss due to stillbirths, piglet mortality and low birth weight. This is due to breeding programs that have resulted in larger litters. It has been suggested that these problems are due to the metabolic state of the sow during gestation and the fact that she might not be able to supply her foetuses with enough nutrients for survival and a high and even birth weight. A lot of research has been done to investigate whether body weight and back fat thickness of the sow has any impact on her reproductive traits and if there are any special feed components that improve reproduction. Fibers and unsaturated fatty acids have a positive impact on reproductive traits as long as the sow is fed a sufficient amount of energy and protein during gestation and lactation.

Purpose: To compare the expectations of coming profession in social work with experienced social work. We wanted to compare the pictures between the students in school of social work studies with social workers. We also wanted to increase social workers as well as other readers? awareness of social work as a profession.Questions: What characterizes the school of social studies? How do students in school of social work view the coming role as a professional? How do students in school of social work view upon social workers as professionals? How do social workers view upon their own profession? How do social workers view upon the own role as a professional? How do social workers view upon the relation between the idea of the profession and the daily practice? How do the students in school of social work studies and social workers view upon professional social work?Method: Qualitative study with qualitative interviews.Conclusion: Social work is a low status profession. How to increase the status of social work is not easy.

The purpose of this essay is to describe how probation service officers regard their professional role and their liberty of action within the motivational treatment program, MIK, and the probation organization. To answer the purpose three questions were formulated: 1) Does the probation service organization affect the individual discretion for the probation service officers, and in that case how? 2) Does the motivational treatment program, MIK, influence the probation officers? professionalism and their professional role? 3) What advantages and disadvantages do the probation service officers consider MIK being related to? The method conducted in the study was interviews with five probation service officers in Stockholm. The interviews were combined with a theoretical framework based on themes as organization, professional role, professionalism and motivation. The result showed that probation officers consider themselves to have a relatively high discretion within their work.

This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

This study investigates verbal and visuospatial memory strategies used by individuals with perceptual or cognitive disabilities. The groups concentrated on in this study are deaf individuals who are native sign language users and individuals with dyslexia. The study comprises an experiment and an in-depth study in which a pre-test and a questionnaire were used. Nine deaf signers, two persons with dyslexia and 12 persons without any perceptual or cognitive constraints participated. Of these 23 persons, seven were selected to take part in the in-depth study.

The failure of Structural Adjustment Programs and its neoliberal policies to effectively reduce poverty have led to the creation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) by The World Bank and International Monetary Fund. PRSP, connected to both the Comprehensive Development Strategy and the HIPC initiative, are built on the notion of national ownership and stakeholder participation and thereby expand potential conditionality to include matters of governance. This thesis examines the evolution of PRSP and how the process of participation affects national governance structures. By analyzing the role of rules and norms within the World Bank and IMF from a historical point of view the thesis explains why the participation process has developed the way it has. It concludes that neoliberal norms, still at heart within the World Bank and IMF, have an impact on the process of participation within nation states and thereby its governance structure.

The objective of this study was to make an inventory and a potential analysis of the organic beef production in the region of Gävleborg, Sweden. A survey was conducted, where a questionaire was sent to all farmers in the region who had environmental subsidies concerning organic cropping systems in 2001. In total, there were 701 farmers, of which 46 % participated in the study. Three slaughter houses were interviewed to get their pictures of the development of organic beef production. The study shows that there are potentials and interests in the region to increase the production of organic beef.

Natural monuments are natural objects with special protection due to their high natural value or cultural significance. The natural value is determined by the occurrence of signal species found on and near the natural monument. The law surrounding natural monuments has evolved a lot since the first ones were declared, and today the title natural monument can be replaced with the title tree with high conservation value. The title has come later and can sometimes overlap natural monument. Some natural monuments lack the qualities required to be classified as a natural monument or a tree with high conservation value, but have a cultural importance.

With knowledge of how the southern Swedish forests have been affected by storms the past years, this study intended to find out which factors affect the storm firmness of a stand the most. The study was based on data from stands in the, by the storm Gudrun, affected area. The results of the analyses that tested the stand factors that influence the amount of storm damage to the greatest extent showed that the storm sensitivity of Norway spruce stands were largely due to previous management actions. The factors that could be controlled by thinning and had relevance of storm damage standpoint, according to the results were; the dominant height, volume, basal area weighted mean diameter and stand age at last thinning. In this study, these results are not as clear for Scots pine.

This is a study of predictions made by the press during the financial crisis in Asia in the autumn of 1997. The study includes a qualitative, quantitative and comparative analysis of the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Industri. In the last chapter a quantitative analysis of the newspaper Finanstidningen, that today no longer exists, has also been made for comparative reasons. A theoretical framework is also set in the study to explain how the predictions can affect the economy. The quantitative analysis shows that 2/3 of the texts in the traditional morning papers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet included predictions about the crisis from an Asian or global perspective, while only 1/3 of the texts in the financial newspapers Dagens Industri and Finanstidningen included such predictions.

This study focused on how local politicians in Kalmar perceive journalists and their intertwined relationship. We based our study on the theoretical understanding of today?s media-centric democratic society. The ?adversary model? offered an understanding of the intricate relations between politicians and journalists.