This thesis is dedicated to analysing the relationship between Islam and democracy and the role played by Civil Society in a process towards democracy. This theme is further elaborated through a comprehensive study of three modern Muslim intellectuals: Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), and their thoughts about and views on Islam and democracy. Islam has often been portrayed in a stereotype manner where all forms of change are seen as impossible. The aim of this study is to go beyond this vision and instead focus one the role of Islam in processes of development and new forms of interpretation concerning democracy.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the relationship between Islam and democracy.

The research group Soil and Water Management at the department of Soil and Environment at theSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala are studying greenhouse gas emissions fromcultivated peat soils. To measure carbon dioxide emissions from peat soils in the field the researchgroup are now using two portable carbon dioxide meters (Vaisala GMP343). For practical reasons,they plan to acquire a new type of automated field meter. The aim of this study is to evaluate thepresent meters to see how environmental conditions and instrument settings affect the results,which is meant to facilitate the introduction of the new field meter when the meters needs to becompared. As a part of the study the relationship between groundwater level and carbon dioxideemissions from peat soils will be investigated.The evaluation of the two carbon dioxide meters was made by connecting them to one single airtightsystem, with the aim of creating identical measurement environments.

Research in international trade situations has mainly focused on understanding the exporter?s actions and has showed ways on how these can be optimized. Although the importer in most cases, until this day, has been left outside this focus, it has been showed that the importer often is the active participant in an international dyad. It is the importer who is actively seeking suppliers for its production or distribution. Based on previous research in the area, the following study identifies the factors that are vital to the importer for satisfactory relations.

Background: Since the early 60?s, the CAPM or Capital Asset Pricing Model, has been an invaluable tool for assessing an asset's expected return, assuming that the asset is added to an already well-diversified portfolio of assets. CAPM theory assume that the unsystematic risk can be diversified and that the systematic, market-specific, risk is determined by the Beta value, from the Greek ?. An investor who takes big risks expect higher returns.One of the CAPM?s basic assumptions is that disruption in the market is not taken into account.

The vizualisation and creating of places is an essential part of physical planning. The notion of places as placeless, is likewise of importance for the creating of places. Some tendencies concerning architecture like modernism, as well as constructions whome don´t fit in their landscape, have contributed to the benaming and experience of places as placeless. Phenomenon as globalization and post-industrialism have in some cases conduced to the withering of the sense of place. With starting-point in litteraturestudies, observations of places and interviews, this is a lucubration concerning the means of placelessness in physical planning.

When stormwater occurs near human activity the water gets polluted. The purity and composition vary widely depending on the types of activities in the area, the type of surface the water comes in contact with, precipitation and many more parameters. It has long been known that stormwater quality can affect both human health and the environment as stormwater is a major contributor to pollution of receiving waters.A human activity that has an impact on the environment in several different ways is traffic and stormwater is no exception. Airborne gases that react with precipitation, oil leaks and fuel systems that drops down on the ground, metals from brake linings and rubber particles from tire wear are some of the aspects you have to take into account when categorizing the relationship between traffic and polluted stormwater.In this project, stormwater samples from a parking lot in Halmstad, Sweden were collected and analyzed with an atomic spectrophotometer. The presence and relationship between copper, cadmium and zinc with different rainfall parameters have been studied.

Until recently, the art market has expanded for several consecutive years. The primary art market is characterized by an unclear pricing mechanism and an infinite as well as limited supply. Previous business studies have so far primarily focused either on art as an investment or on the gallery?s activities. This thesis takes an explorative approach and aims to shed a light on the art collector?s behavior on the Swedish market for contemporary art.

This Master's thesis concerns the professional knowledge of the librarian. The image of this knowledge is regarded as constructed in a social context, which is why the discourse analytic approach is selected as method. The empirical material consists of two texts concerning the education of librarians. A theory of knowledge, emanating from Aristotle, is applied to the results to find examples of the forms of knowledge that are excluded from the discourse. A number of themes, or ways, in which it is possible to discuss the phenomenon of the librarian's knowledge, are identified in the texts.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply. Using theories of policy implementation and the municipal planning situation, possible explanations for the findings of the analysis could be a split in responsibility between the formulating and implementation of the policy for housing supply and its contents, a lack of resources of means for implementing or the prevalence of special interests when attempting to convert policy to plans..

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how subordination and superiority emerges in the interaction between heterosexual couples between 20 to 30 years old, without children. Eight semi-structured interviews with four couples have been conducted to provide insight into how subordination and superiority is made in the interaction between the cohabiting couples. All interviews were transcribed and then manually categorized along specific main themes and sub themes. The empirical data were then assayed by a hermeneutic interpretation.   Three previous studies have formed the basis for this study, Det kallas kärlek by Carin Holmberg, the anthology, Jämställdhetens pris and Familjer i tiden by Christine Roman and Helen Peterson. The theoretical framework consists symbolic interactionism, and especially the concept of asymmetrical role-taking and also doing gender.

The purpose of this study was to explore how interpersonal relationship can be affected by groing up in a New Religoius Movement such as Jehovah?s Withnesses and how it has affected them both in their youth and today. The aim was also to explore if there were people in the respondents' environment that was significant to them during their childhood and which support our respondents have received if they were in need of it.We have not found any previous research on children's social relationships within the Jehovah's Witnesses. We therefore believe that this study is of high relevance to both society and also for all the professionals who come into contact with these children. To discover a child in need, knowledge about how their social environment looks like is crucial.

To become a successful athlete requires several different components in which one of themost significant is the ability to develop their own physical strenght. What weight exercises has the best transfer effects for skating?Participants in the study were 20 male senior hockey players from Div. II in the Västra Gö- talands Regionen in which all participants had at least 10 years of hockey experience.Test subjects had to perform a five-minute individual warm up followed by an opportunity to familiarize with the upcoming exercise. The first on-ice test was a 35 meters sprint test and the second test was an S-cornering agility test.

Since a few years back television has been on a verge of an enormous digital change. Web-TV is now growing at an incredible rate and is said to completely change the way we consume TV. The purpose of this essay is to determine and gain an understanding of how representatives of the broadcast industry looks at the phenomenon of web-TV and especially the different kinds of online video services and how they believe this will affect the television. Methods used are qualitative interviews which we compared with previous studies on the subject and acknowledged communication theories. The respondents were people with good insight and understanding of the media and TV industry.

Title: ?Content, Contact, Cash?- En kvalitativ studie om framgångsrik marknadsföring viasociala medierAuthors: Andreas Hadzikostas and Helli ShahidiAssigner: NewsroomCourse: Degree thesis in Bachelor of Media and communication at the faculty ofJournalism and mass communication at University of Gothenburg, SwedenSemester: Spring semester, 2010Tutor: Ingela WadbringPages: 49, including two enclosuresPurpose: To elucidate which factors are significant for successful marketing via the social media.Method: Expert interviews, Informative interviews and content analysisMaterial: Interviews with Lena Carlsson at Kreafon PR agency, Peter Baeza at IHM Business School, Eva and Kalle Bodestig at Mandel, Lena Ekman at Saltå kvarn and Rick Short at Indium Corporation.Main result: This study has resulted in both comprehensive and concrete proposals for how Newsroom should work and market themselves, but mainly their customers via the social media tools such as Facebook and blogs. In order for companies to be successful with their marketing, they ought to build a strong, personal and enduring relationship with their customers by being attentive of their target group. The main purpose of the social media is to encourage individuals to interact and conduct dialogue with the participants rather than focusing entirely on one way communication. Furthermore, in order for a company, regardless of size, to be successful in building a healthy relationship with their costumers, they ought to showcompassion for their feelings and needs, as well as providing them with as much information as possible, via all of the selected social media tools to work with.

In recent years, global organizations safeguarding financial stability has started to track commercial property markets. One of the reasons for this refers to the fact that commercial property constitutes a large share of bank lending. Simultaneously, bank exposures to commercial property are extensive and risky since collateral values are strongly correlated to borrowers cash flows. Since banks are viewed to play a key role for financial stability, studying the relationship is well motivated. To better understand how commercial property markets interact with financial stability, this paper develops an econometric model for studying the commercial rental market.