This pilot study examined whether treatment with Vortex Process Technology (VPT) of the irrigation water used on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants had any effect on plant growth. In a block experiment, with two blocks comprising 12 vases containing 1 L water and two tomato plantlets, treatment in which, nutrient solution was based on Vortex-treated water was compared with an control using untreated water. All vases were kept in a static aerated culture system in a daylight chamber for four weeks. The results showed that the effect of the two blocks exceeded the effect of vortex treatment in terms of leaf area and weight of fresh and dry matter. Plant height, stem width and internodal length were significantly different in tomato plants grown in Vortex-processed water compared with the untreated control.

Skolverket menar att populärkultur, däribland dataspel, är användbara verktyg för att nå elevernas livsvärldar i religionskunskapsundervisningen.Den här uppsatsen undersöker den religionsdidaktiska potentialen hos Mass Effect-spelen i gymnasieskolan utifrån följande frågeställningar:Får rätt och fel handling något utrymme i Mass Effect? På vilket sätt? Vad är rätt och fel i spelkontexten?Kan Mass Effect fungera som stödstruktur för att arbeta med stoff och förmågor som är en del av religionskunskapens etikundervisning och i sådana fall på vilket sätt?Spelkontexten utforskas genom en analys av hur spelens Paragon/Renegade-system bedömer olika handlingar. Systemet jämförs med plikt-, konsekvens- och dygdetiska förhållningssätt; dessa är etiska modeller som tas upp av styrdokumenten. En av spelens beslutssituationer granskas också utifrån en beslutsmodell och styrdokumentens etiska modeller bidrar här med teoretisk och kursplanemässig förankring.Undersökningen visar att flera av de områden som ska ingå i gymnasieskolans etikundervisning kan beröras genom att låta olika element i Mass Effect-spelen möta ämnets stoff. Processen verkar ur ett didaktiskt perspektiv både berikande för spelkontexten och illustrerar komplexiteten hos etiska modeller och fattandet av etiska beslut.

Vid nedläggning av verksamheter har man i tidigare studier stött på det oväntade fenomenet close-down effect, att anställdas produktivitet ökar. Belöningar kan inverka på anställdas prestation då motivationen, enligt balansteorin, ligger i strävan efter jämvikt mellan belöning och arbetsinsats. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka belöningars betydelse för anställdas arbetsattityder under nedläggningsprocessen, samt att undersöka om beslutet om nedläggning upplevs som ett brott mot det psykologiska kontraktet. En enkätundersökning och en prestationsbedömning genomfördes bland 275 medarbetare på ett tillverkningsföretag. Studiens resultat indikerar att ju högre anställdas förväntan om belöning är, desto högre är deras tillit till arbetsgivaren.

Interactive media is constantly increasing in our surroundings and with the innovation of touch-screens, two-way communication with screens has become part of our daily life. Still, this well known way of process information is not often seen in the in-store environment of grocery retailing. Here, interactive media is an unestablished field where empirical studies are invisible within the academic world. The lack of knowledge in which effect interactive digital signage has is one of the barriers of investing in this marketing solution in-store. The main purpose of this study is to examine and describe the effects of interactive digital signage at shelf within grocery retailing.

Functioning reproductive organs are essential for the survival of a species. The reproductive system is very sensitive to exposure of chemical substances of anthropogenic origin. Humans release great amounts of chemical substances to the environment by our means of life and these substances have been proved to have a negative effect on the reproductive ability of different vertebral classes. In the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) a declined reproductive ability as an effect of decreased testosterone levels and decreased testicular size has been connected to the presence of high levels of organohalogenic compounds like PCBs. Although the Swedish brown bear (Ursus arctos) is not as carnivorous as its close relative the polar bear it is still exposed to environmental.

The essay examines through semi-structured interviews the experiences of overcrowded housing, as they are portrayed through the eyes of children aged 8 ? 14. Overcrowded housing has an effect on children?s school performance, general health and is often linked to less capacity for normal social consumption. Yet there seems to be little done in terms of interrogating children about how they perceive their situation here and now.

Packaging has had little impact in marketing literature. Research has focused on a single transaction approach. Lately researchers are looking at packages as a tool for brand building purposes. Thus, the focus is moving towards a multiple transaction approach, where packages can affect the consumer also after the purchase. For a range of goods extrinsic cues has been shown to have stronger effect on consumers' evaluation than intrinsic ones.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze experiences of how the daily rounds and a persons role is changing when you go from being a family member to being a family member as well as being a kinship carer.Essential questions at issue was:- Which feelings are associated to the roll as kinship carer?- What are the motivations for the relative/family member to become a kinship carer?- What is the change of the role like before and after the disease.Six persons have been interviewed on the subject and symbolic interactionism and role theory has been our theoretical perspective. The essay has been related to the ideas of Meads on social interaction and to Goffmans theatre theorem.The result of the essay showed that feelings and motivations as regards to the daily rounds and the role of the kinship carer were individual, where similarities and differences occurred. When ones partner, parent or child got a disease/functional disability it generated in some changes regarding their daily rounds and it led to altering of roles. To assume a role was a natural result and often happened when a relative/family member got a disease or an injury..

The aim of the study was to describe how managers at the eldercare system especially in nursing homes work to ensure high quality care. For this purpose, a qualitative method was used in this study and four managers at nursing home have been interviewed. Previous studies have shown that managers in some cases are restricted in their actions and that this may slow down the improvement of the care. At the same time the managers describe their work as demanding and diverse. They have a significant staff responsibility, meaning that they have to ensure the quality of care.

Civil disobedience constitutes an interesting ethical phenomena in the democraticstate since the people performing it consciously brakes laws and norms in societyfor purposes they themselves judge to be morally good and just. This thesisexamines whether the phenomena of civil disobedience is justifiable in ademocratic society.In this study civil disobedience is analyzed on two levels. First the problem isanalyzed on a theoretical level in relative to the three, by us established, values:respect for the law, the will of the majority and equality. Second, civildisobedience is analyzed on a more practical level where we test our theoreticalline of argument with the help of two example groups who engages in civildisobedience. The justification of civil disobedience is also analyzed through twoethical perspectives on acting, deontology and consequentialism.Our conclusion is that civil disobedience is justifiable on a theoretical level inrelative to the values we discuss.

This study examines the in-game encyclopaedia Codex as it appears within the videogame Mass Effect. The purpose of this study is to analyse the Codex with emphasis on how the reading process is affected by the videogame medium. In this regard the study seeks to uncover what characterises the Codex as a fictional encyclopaedia, what it entails and how it interacts with the rest of the game. The theoretical basis of this study is derived from a combination of the writings of Wolfgang Iser concerning the process of reading, Jesper Juul's writings on the relationship between games and narratives, and the concept of intermediality as discussed by Hans Lund and Jørgen Bruhn.      This study is based on a close examination of the PC and Playstation 3 versions of the videogame Mass Effect, created by Bioware, with particular emphasis placed on the Codex. Mass Effect is a science fiction third-person shooter and RPG set in a future where mankind has begun interacting with aliens civilizations and colonising new planets.

The purspose of this study is to investigate how teachers are working to individualize mathemathics education relative to high-performing students and how they define the therm individualization. According to the Swedish curriculum the teaching process should be based on the students prevoius knowledge and experiences. The teachers should in their preperation take every student in to consideration. To be able to investigate these subjets I prepared following questions:What does the concept of individualization in mathematics mean for the teachers?What does it mean to work with an individualized mathematics teaching?How does teachers individualizes teaching mathematics relative to high performing students?This study is based on a qualitative method with both interviews and observations.

BACKGROUND: Several people die every year. The numbers of deceased in Sweden were 91449 in 2008. This often brings bereavement for the relatives and in hospital with end-of-life care it can be important for the health professionals to support and also take care of the relatives. AIM: The aim of this study is to illuminate relatives? experiences of the caring situation with end-of life-care when a close relative is dying METHOD: Literature review.

THE ROLE OF TARGET GROUPS IN FEEDBACK EFFECTSBrand extension is one of the most commonly used brand strategies since it reduces some of the risks involved in introducing a completely new brand. There are, however, several challenges associated with brand extensions. One of these challenges is the impact of a new brand extension on the parent brand image, which is known as feedback effect. Feedback effects are the changes in parent brand associations that are caused by a new brand extension, these effects can be both negative and positive. Several previous studies have investigated feedback effects and the antecedents of these effects.

This paper analyses how Swedish fine-art oil paintings sold at auctions has performed as a monetary investment during the period autumn 1985 until spring 2006. An average price technique as well as a hedonic regression technique, applied to a sample of 19 213 auction sales, is used to construct price indices. The indices show somewhat different results, which is explained by the inability of the average price model to adjust for relative differences in quality between periods. The hedonic regression model on the other hand captures this effect, why the hedonic index is applied in a financial return model. By adjusting for transaction cost, the financial return of an average investment in paintings is calculated.