The present essay concerns Walter Benjamin?s thought regarding history and temporality as he articulated it in his last work that was only published posthumously: ?U?ber den Begriff der Geschichte?. The purpose is to analyze Benjamin?s construction of historical materialism and to suggest a reading of it as directed towards an opening of history. For Walter Benjamin, every moment presents itself as a possibility of radical otherness: a possibility for things to be different.

This report documents the process of designing a laboratory exercise in Fourier analysis at Vetenskapens Hus (House of Science) in Stockholm. The lab is designed for high school students studying science or technical education. It focuses on the physicalunderstanding and mathematical description of sound, in particular music. A model of such a lab is presented in this work; containing a review of the mathematical theory, summary of educational research in the field, descriptions of the design process and of the investigativework that led to the final result. The designed material for the lab includes developed computer programs, visit leader tutorial and description for teachers. .

Science Fiction har sedan sin uppkomst gestaltat samhället och de samhällsfrågor som för sin tid är aktuella. Alltifrån ifall människans existens är kroppslig eller andlig, till vad som händer när livsformer från andra planeter kommer till Jorden, har diskuteras i Science Fiction. I tv-serien Battlestar Galactica gestaltas och problematiseras vår samtid. Genom att flytta mänskligheten från Jorden och ut i rymden, där de konfronteras med en mängd etiska och moraliska frågor ? tvingade att se över vad de själva är och vad de håller på att bli.

Uppsala University is involved in a large international collaborationto build the Laser heater system for the European Xray Free-electronlaser in Hamburg, Germany. In this thesis I describe a laser incouplingdevice into the vacuum chamber of this laser heater all the way fromthe specifications to a completed design.The laser heater is a very important part of the XFEL and thepart described here is a part of the vacuum system needed to couplean external laser into the electron vacuum system and align it withthe electron bunches in order to heat them. The task was started by studying the literature about the basic theory andthe design of vacuum systems. After this study and collection of ideaswith colleagues I started to prepare different concepts to solve thetask. The ideas can be put into two categories, in one case the couplingmirror is located inside the vacuum chamber and in the second caseoutside.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study the information needs of the homeless. The main focus is to investigate what kind of information needs that are to be found among the homeless and also how information is exchanged and shared by the group. Another aspect of our study includes the sources that are used to fulfil these information needs. The homeless use of the library, as one of these sources, is also examined.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

The purpose with this study is to map the research front and the research base in information science, by using the bibliometric methods bibliographic coupling and author-co citation analysis. The research questions are: 1. What is the nature of the research front in information science, regarding which areas that are being studied? 2. What is the nature of the research base in information science, regarding which authors who are most cited, and how they can be grouped? The data used in the study were gathered from articles published in the journal Journal of the American society for information science and technology, published between 2004-2006, respectively 1986-2006.

In order to be able to change, to maintain competitiveness as a company in a world where rapid changes is part of the daily life, it is crucial to have knowledge and methods in how to change. One method, originally developed in Finland, is the Change Laboratory. This method is said to be efficient, not only concerning change aspects but also learning, since change and learning in this method is intertwined. This Master Thesis (20p.) tells about the process of conducting a Change Laboratory with a Swedish high-tech company and analyses factors in the process that makes change possible..

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis in social work has been to examine whether society's perception of poverty and poor people has changed over the more than 160 years have passed since the first national Poor regulation was enacted in Sweden. With a social constructionist approach and inspired by the critical discourse analysis we have conducted two studies to find answers to what differences and similarities between the concepts of scanty care (1847) and standards of living (2002). A study based on previous research was conducted to examine how society's perception of poverty has changed and designed in a historical perspective. We also conducted a textual analysis of relevant legal texts and legislative history to show how these texts reflect the society's official view of poverty based interventions targeted to poor people.The two sub-studies show that the concepts at different times in history has been crucial for the community support poor people were entitled to. Our overall conclusion is that despite today's advanced social policy there are many obvious similarities between the concepts of scanty care and standards of living.

I examensarbetet har läroboksserier inom fysik för gymnasienivån studerats med avseende på Nature of Science. Begreppet Nature of Science, NOS, handlar om naturvetenskapens epistemologi och de sammanhang som påverkar skapandet av ny kunskap inom naturvetenskap. Aspekter från andra vetenskapsområden som, historia, filosofi, ekonomi, och sociologi lyfts fram som viktiga i kunskapsutvecklingen av naturvetenskap. Som grund för studien har ett avgränsat avsnitt, som i examensarbetet benämnts vad är ljus, undersökts. Inom detta område har det studerats om och hur NOS används i läroböckerna.

AbstractThis study deals with motivation as an overall concept, from a student perspective. It encompasses factors that could directly affect students and their positive or negative motivation, concepts such as relationships, communication, expectations and interactions and their importance to my informants.The study also discusses certain theories to show the different ways of defining motivation, specifically in relation to my informants and their and my conclusions. My ambition is to establish the importance of the concepts mentioned above, as well as perspective changes to the enhancement of the performance standards of a good teacher.The purpose of this work is to describe, understand and clarify the external and internal factors that affect motivation. In order to achieve this purpose, I chose to use a method of qualitative interviews with three students, with different backgrounds, schools and conditions but with a lack of motivation as a unifying characteristic. The research questions were as follows:What factors influence students' motivation?   What impact do achievement targets have in relation to the pupils? own motivation to learn?How important are teachers' expectations for the individual student's motivation?Within this study sub-concepts such as importance of expectations, relationships, and significant others are, according to my analysis, of great importance.

Emhart Glass is the world?s leading manufacturer of equipment, controls and components to the glass container industry. The goal of this project has been to identify improvements and propose cost saving solutions when moving one of Emhart Glass work cells in Sundsvall. The changes shall result in improved work environment and increased product quality. The method contains value stream mapping, concept selection and P-FMEA and complies with Emhart Glass goal to become a more Lean focused business.

The aim of this study was to investigate the emotions among the staff at the group housings when they observe the caretakers expressions of masturbation and how the staff handles these expressions in their daily and long-term work. The theoretical concepts that were used in this study are group housing as a public and private arena, occupational role, relation, humanistic effort, pedagogical effort, empowerment, care ethic and emotions. The concepts are related to each other and constitutes the foundation for the analysis of the empirical data used in this study. A qualitative study was carried out, in forms of half structured interviews with six informants, of which the majority was women. It came to light that the interviewees only had positive feelings for the caretaker?s expressions of masturbation.

Climate change and the sea level rise that it contributes to is an ever more pressing issue for costal municipalities around the world. Today there is a great deal of scientific reports and projections on what these changes could entail. However, resent studies on south Swedish costal municipalities have shown great discrepancies when it comes to how these scientific projections are implemented in the municipal planning and adaptation strategies. In an effort to understand the underlying reasons for this lack of concurrence, this paper has applied Rolf Lidskogs theory of the hetrogenity of science. The theory gives an explanation to the complications in the science-policy interface, by describing complicating factors in the communication between these actors.

With ever-increasing environmental problems in the world, I have with this thesis aimed at studying how the Inuit people of the Arctic organize themselves around the issue of environmental degradation. In focus for this thesis is the organization Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), an NGO that focuses on saving and protecting the social and cultural rights of the Inuit people, along with the environment in the four arctic regions. This aboriginal population has a strong connection to the environment they dwell in, as the area serves as a source of income and nutrition as well as an historically important place for their culture.I will in this thesis primarily investigate the methods of operation amongst NGOs, as well as their ability to influence and interact with the UN. These are three concepts that I, as a hypothesis, considered to distinguish ICC from other NGOs. With help from three theories about NGOs, I conclude that certain central elements of ICC differ from the average NGO, making ICC a new kind of actor in global politics..