The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.

This essay examines the theme of blindness in the Gospel of Mark. The two main questions asked are: 1) ?What is Mark?s view on blindness?? and 2) ?How does the Gospel of Mark?s view on blindness inform the current discourse of disability studies and how can we interpret Mark?s view on blindness today?? By the methods of metaphor analysis and character analysis, four passages of the Gospel are studied (Mark 4:10-12; 8:14-21; 22-26; 10:46-52). The analysis concludes that blindness is depicted by the author of the Gospel as a disability which also consist of a lack of cognitive ability and a hopeless state that is in need of healing.  The depiction of blindness in Mark originates out of the authors use of blindness as a metaphor for lack of cognitive ability (Mk 4:12; 8:18) and the lack of characterization of the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22-23). This view on blindness is, in comparison to a modern view, difficult, as it marginalizes persons with blindness as inconsiderate and not fully human.

Which expectations did leading debaters place on fiction as an instrument in achieving societal changes hoped for by introducing the Public library? How can the value of fiction be described in relation to the mission of the Public library, according to these moulders of public opinion? Place and timeframe for this thesis is Sweden around the years 1905-1912 (period of formation of the Public library here according to the Anglo-American model). Starting point is the assumption that the Public library as a political institution is characterized by an ideological function. It produces meaning and norms, it sets standards of value. Method used is based on close reading and comparison.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study how public librarians? view mediation of fiction: the knowledge needed, the thoughts expressed about their own and other adults reading of fiction and how the informants define their roles as mediators of fiction. The method used was qualitative interviews with six librarians at main libraries in Swedish cities of different sizes. The theoretical starting points are Louise M. Rosenblatt?s reader-response theory, Michail Bachtin?s theory of speech genres and Åse Tveit?s and Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theories about mediation of fiction.

The aim of this thesis is to map important strategies and factors that a firm, in this case Gunnebo Lifting AB can use when establishing themselves at the Russian market. The Russian market is today considered to be an emerging market. Within this study several areas of theory connected to entering new markets have been touched upon. These areas are market analysis, relationships and networking, internationalization processes, distribution chains, export issues and finally cultural distances. The empirical data for this thesis were collected through qualitative interviews.The results that arose when analyzing the theories combined with the empirical data pointed towards five strategies and factors of importance.

I den här uppsatsen behandlas lärares arbete vid läs- och skrivinlärning i år 1. I dagens samhälle är det av stor vikt att varje individ utvecklar en god läs- och skrivförmåga. Forskning visar på att lärarens kompetens kan vara avgörande för att alla elever ska utvecklas till goda läsare och skrivare. Därför har jag intresserat mig för hur lärare arbetar. Jag har, genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fem verksamma lärare, undersökt hur deras arbetssätt ser ut samt tittat på vad som förenar dem och skiljer dem åt i detta arbete.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze three works that are regarded as fictional biographies. In all three selected works the protagonists are historical Swedish women who are known for being a part of the cultural sphere of their time. Two of them are also recognized as important and somewhat pivotal characters in the struggle for women?s rights at the turn of the 19th century. The analyzed works, however, accentuate the women?s private life.

Predicting corporate failure is an increasingly important topic in the world of economics today. This paper, with the help of the credit ranking company Syna AB, aims to investigate a few different statistic strategies to do just that. This task is accomplished by using a data material of 250 000 Swedish companies divided into two subsamples. The first sample is used to develop the model and the second as a validation sample. The model developing sample holds 160 000 companies divided into five different subgroups based on size and age.

The title of this monography is Discourses of Writing in the Curriculum of the A-course in Swedish. The aim of this monograph is to find wich forms and discourses of writing that are emphasized and premiered in the curriculum for the first course in Swedish during secondary education in Sweden, grades 10-12. What kind of writing are presented to the students and what potentially miss due to the selection? Is any form of writing presented more thoroughly or as more important than any other in the curriculum?The professor of linguistics, Roz Ivanic, has formed different discourses of writing that she has found being used in education of writing. With these discourses of writing  I have applied them on the curriculum and then been able to see wich forms of writing that are premiered.

In Swedish sheep industry it is desired to have lambs slaughtered evenly distributed over the year. Swedish sheep are generally seasonal breeders with lambs born in the spring and slaughtered in the autumn. Some of the breeds, e.g. Swedish Finewool and Roslag sheep breeds have shown ability to lamb out of season. For increased knowledge on the possibilities to breed for out-of-season lambing in Swedish sheep breeds, the aim of this master thesis is to study the variation in frequency of two alleles in the MTNR1A gene in the three breeds; Gotland, Swedish Finewool, and Roslag sheep.

In this essay, the phenomenon and the concept "meditation" are treated. Meditation is a mental training technique where one develops the ability to choose where to put attention and ability to focus. Techniques for meditation is used individually of people who wants to develop themselves as persons and in therapeutic aims of professional within the field of psychology in order to help people to find solutions of problems within themselves. The aim with this essay were to do a qualitative study in order to see how possible effects of meditation influences daily life of contributory practisian's. Issue has been as follows; which effects have one regularly conducting of meditation on people and their lives? Interviews with four experienced meditators were done in India and the material were analyzed afterwards with the aid of thematic analysis, furthermore in order to link the results with clinical research and established theories about meditation.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study if teenage fiction, published in Swedish during the course of one year, matches what boys in eight grade claim they want to read about. The background for our work is a survey initiated by Lärarnas Riksförbund, Läsa för att lära, in 2005. The conclusion drawn in Läsa för att lära is that many children, especially boys, lose their interest in reading when they become teenagers. Information on fictional books for teenagers has been collected from Bibliotekstjänst.

To talk about, talk to or with children. A conversation between a child and its teacher should be more than the teacher telling the child what to do, how to act. It should be more like a respectful and reverent meeting between two people where the adult sets the tone. The purpose of this research is to investigate teachers' experiences of conversations with children in need of special assistance. Our issues: What do teachers say about how they meet children in need of support? How do teachers response to students who are in difficulty? What ability have teachers and their school's to meet children in need of support and what appear to be particularly important or problematic issues for them in that work? In order to find some answers to our questions we interviewed ten teachers at two schools.

Denna uppsats undersöker huruvida den dramaturgiska strukturen är en förutsättning för att en situationskomedi ska fungera väl ? det vill säga, vara underhållande och locka till skratt. I en komparativ analys av den mycket väl fungerande amerikanska situationskomedin Friends och den mindre bra svenska situationskomedin Svensson, Svensson framkom dock inga större strukturella brister hos något av analysobjekten. Följaktligen är inte den dramaturgiska strukturen avgörande för slutresultatets förmåga att roa. The aim of this study is to find out if dramatic structure is essential to the sitcom's ability to entertain and make audiences laugh. This study is a comparative analysis of the more humorous American situation comedy Friends and the less humorous Swedish situation comedy Svensson, Svensson.

Successful companies are built upon successful individuals. It is these individuals that will create, developand grow the companies and organizations of tomorrow. The primary aim of this paper is to highlight someof the key characteristics of extraordinary entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, as well as gain a deeper understandingof what motivates them, from a time and goal-oriented perspective. Despite the importance of theseindividuals and their massive impact on society's future, there is still a lot that hasn't been investigatedregarding their entrepreneurial drive, from an academic perspective. A comparison between two groups ofindividuals was made, with a total of twenty in-depth interviews.