Our thesis is a single-case study in which we try to answer the question: Why didn?t the lobbygroup Eurogroup for Animals get enough support for their demands in the latest regulation regarding transport of animals? As an example of their cooperation with their memberorganisations, we have chosen the Swedish organisation Djurens Rätt. Through interviews with key-persons involved in the process and with the use of Jeremy Richardson's theory regarding lobbying in the EU, we found that there were many different factors that effected Eurogroup for Animals chances to get an animal friendly legislation. For example by setting too ambitious demands Eurogroup for Animals wasn?t considered to be a serious actor during the legislation process.

This thesis examines how knowledge management professionals use trust as a component in the creation of knowledge management systems, and what methods they use for building trust.Adopting a grounded theory approach, interviews with 8 knowledge management professionals active in different industries served as the base for an analysis that identified trust to be the single most important common factor in the data. The concept of trust used by the informants was identified as relating to the knowledge management system itself, rather than other users, employees or groups in an organisation.Building trust, the KM-professionals mainly focused on three methods: simple solutions, system superiority, and implementation security. Using these methods, the KM-professionals seek to ensure system trust by creating opportunities for users to obtain positive experiences of using the system, and thereby generate a foundation for a trust-based relationship between the user and the system..

This thesis presents a qualitative, comparative study of the violence in the adaptations of Hunger Games (Tony Ross, 2012) and Battle Royale (Kinji Fukusaku, 2000). By analyzing the function of violence in a single scene in each of the movies, and comparing it to the literary original, the study aims to explore if there are any differences in the representation of the violence in the two media. The study also briefly discusses whether the violence has any function in bringing the story forward in both the literary sources and in the films and what the motivation for the violence is. "The study also includes a brief analysis of the narratives in relation to the monomyth established by Jospeh Campbell. Specifically, I discuss the similarities between Hunger Games and Battle Royale, which are two stories that have been created in two different cultural traditions, and whether or not we can say that the stories derive from this monomyth." The result concludes that the monomyth can be found in both stories, but that the scenes which is analyzed has to be put into the context and furhter story of the film to be of any relvance to the theory.

This essay is about exploring the rhetorical business negotiation process. The aim has been to find out how skilled salespeople stand out, and what rhetorical means they use to convince the other party. For this study, a qualitative research interview was applied and altogether five vendors in three different industries were interviewed. The fundamental theory of the essay is based on classical rhetoric. From that I have chosen the specific parts that I have found useful to discuss negotiation and sales processes.The results show that there is not a one single rhetorical approach that is essential to convince the other party.

The purpose of this study is from a case study develop a model that aims to cost effectively improve productivity in a manufacturing production process. The study highlights the importance of having knowledge about customer needs and using a holistic process perspective when improving productivity to identify the relations between the process stations and by this find problems that cause waste and losses in productivity. Tools and methods used to make production more efficient such as single minute exchange of die, spaghetti diagram, 5s and master production schedule is presented an applied in the model to see how these effect costs, productivity etc.Maintenance effects on quality and productivity in a manufacturing company will as well be covered in this thesis. The results and conclusions finally reveals how the process improvement tools, maintenance and production planning for example effects each other and why it is important to establish an attitude in the company where continuous process improvement should be emphasized..

The purpose of this study has been to investigate the virtual world that people are part of on online dating sites. To do this we have investigated two different research questions, which are the following: What functions do the online dating sites provide? Why and how are the online dating sites being used by their members? In order to gather information about these matters, we have used a qualitative method consisting of participating observation, scrutinizing and single person interviews. Our results indicate that people have different goals with their usage of online dating sites; some are looking for love, a long-term relationship while others are looking for sexual contact. There are many different online dating sites to choose from depending on the users? objective.

This study is a survey concerning learning on equal terms. The purpose of the survey is to get a look into how teachers of today integrate students to obtain an individually adapt education. A good education is where every single student can evolve from an individual level and how education is adapted to let high-achieving students keep their motivation and thus develop from their own level of knowledge.Data has been collected through a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews. In the result the answers of the interviews are presented and it shows that teachers turn their focus towards low-achieving students. Low-achieving students are more in need of support to reach the required amount of knowledge, but that the high-achieving students must not be forgotten by the teachers. .

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of streamlining the test process by utilizing pair programming. During the process, pair programming has been practiced as is defined by the Extreme programming (XP) software development methodology, with the other aspects of XP discarded. The focus of the testing itself has been toward unit testing. The methods applied has been with an experimental approach where 93 cases were attempted to be solved by either single programmers or pair programmers. What has been investigated in these experiments was the time needed to complete a case, how many test attempts were needed to solve the case, and how high a percentage of the cases were solved.

The aim of the study is to investigate pupils? attitudes to and experiences of reading aloud by the teacher in grade 1. The study answers questions about how the pupils perceive the reading aloud, what they think they learn from it, and what books they prefer the teacher to read from. The study was conducted with the aid of semi-structured interviews with eleven pupils, six girls and five boys. The study shows that the pupils have a great deal to say about reading aloud.

Problemen med fuktskador i byggnader är många och kostnaderna för att åtgärda problemen är stora. ByggaF är en metod som riktar sig till hela byggprocessen och den dokumenterar, kommunicerar samt säkerställer fuktsäkerheten genom hela den processen. NCC använder sig idag av en egen metod för att säkerställa fuktsäkerheten och den metoden jämförs i detta arbete mot ByggaF. Arbetet inriktar sig mot produktionsskedet av byggprocessen vilket innebär att fuktsäkerhetsarbetet är granskat i det skedet.Syftet med detta examensarbete är att NCC i Umeå ska få en bättre kännedom om vad ByggaF är och hur den metoden kan användas inom byggproduktion. Ytterligare syfte är att visa hur arbetet kan ske för att förebygga fuktskaderisken genom att använda metoden ByggaF, en metod för fuktsäkert byggande.Arbetet är utfört på NCCs byggnation på Öbacka strand etapp 4 och det bygget har fungerat som referens för NCCs fuktarbete.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

This review article presents the splicing process during messenger RNA maturation and how it is regulated by different Cis-regulatory RNA-sequence elements and splicing factors. A more detailed description of the process alternative splicing and its importance to the function of genes from the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana is also given. A single eukaryotic gene can by the process alternative splicing (AS) give rise to a number of functionally mature mRNA-molecules, which in turn encodes for structurally and/or functionally different proteins. During the course of evolution, the process alternative splicing has thus shown to be effective in increasing transcriptome and proteome diversity of most eukaryotic organisms. This suggests therefore that the dominant theory in molecular biology, a gene encodes for a protein, needs to be corrected.

Trees of Bergvik apple (Bergviksäpple) planted between 2001 and 2007 have shown varying harvest. This study investigates why some trees gets low or no harvest while others get significantly higher harvest. The aim is to identify some reasons why fruiting differs between the trees and if possible suggest and/or enlighten the tree owners what can be done to improve fruiting. The study includes 25 trees, mostly located in Hälsingland, Sweden. The tree owners have answered two questionnaires, first in the spring with questions regarding flowering and the second in the autumn, regarding harvest.

The purpose of this essay was to find out what alcoholics themselves mean were the way out of their drinking abuse.The questions at stake are:· What kind of context did the interviewed live in before and after the turning point?· How did the process of getting out of the alcohol abuse look like?· What different factors may have influenced the turning point, the maintenance and the interviewee's choice to stop the abuse of alcohol?· Where there any other important occurrences that may have had an impact on their decision to stop drinking?For the investigation we have interviewed three women and five men. They all have had sever problems with alcohol, but all of them also have found a way out of the abuse.Our research shows that the way out of alcohol abuse is very complex and individual. The turning point is rather a process than a single occurrence. Our research also shows that the interaction between the alcohol and important individuals in their immediate surroundings are the absolute most important factor to stop using alcohol in a destructive way but also important when it comes to maintaining soberness..

The presence of nostalgic emotions during consumption is often seen as something purely positive to a product. To evoke these emotions has become a very common tool in marketing and advertising. Paradoxically very few studies have focused on the effects of nostalgia. The purpose of the thesis has been to understand how the presence of nostalgic emotions during consumption effect consumers. The research model used is a quantitative study with testing of hypotheses generated from theory.