This field study examined how elderly and cognitively disabled people used and experienced a social companion robot. The following pages explores the questions: Which are the physical, social and affective qualities during the interaction? The aim was to through observations see how qualities of interaction could activate different forms of behavior. The results show that motion, sound and the eyes together created communicative and emotional changes for users who felt joy and were willing to share the activity with others. The robot stimulated to some extent users to create their own imaginative experiences but often failed to involve user or group for a long time and was also considered too large and heavy to handle..

The transition from having been under another country?s control to becoming a democratic country can, many times, pose difficulties, which has proven itself to be quite common. Estonia and Moldova?s processes towards a democratic regime are two examples of countries with varied success in the final transition phase.When the USSR (Soviet union) fell and collapsed in 1991 Estonia was well on their way from having a communistic ruling to a democratic one due to the fact that their democratic work had already begun a few years prior to 1991. After the collapse Estonia continued with their democratic work and in 2004 the country became a EU member state.

This thesis investigates young people's (16-21) preferences in reading through a surveyincluding interviews and questionnaires. The groups attitudes towards reading and libraries,their reading and library habits, and to what extent eight libraries had bought the preferredliterature were also examined.Some reports from the 80's were used to find the changes. The result shows that youngstersread and visit libraries somewhat more frequently. Trivial literature is not as dominant, moreteenage-books were read. Popular themes are love, history, reality, fantasy/sf, and detectivestories.

AbstractThe aim of the study was to describe district nurses experiences meeting intimate of cancer patients in home care. The study had a qualitative approach with a descriptive design. The sample consisted of ten district nurses employed in primary health care, working in emergency duty in a district in the Middle of Sweden. The results are presented from the two categories; to communicate and being competent, which was formulated to one theme. The theme ?Being safe in one´s professional role, being aware of possibilities and difficulties when encountering intimates in home care?.

Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties and Their Language and Cognitive AbilitiesA Comparison with Children with a Cochlear ImplantAbstractThe aim of this study was to examine the cognitive abilities that are important for reading in children with reading disabilities, children with a cochlear implantation and typically developed children. 64 children aged 10-12 years participated in the study. To answer the question at issue we used the following tests: Block Design from WISC III, PPVT III, TOWRE, SL 40 and a few chosen tests out of the SIPS battery. On tests of the lexical access children with reading disabilities performed at the same level as hearing children, while the children with a cochlear implant performed significantly lower. Test of the phonological and complex working memory showed that children with reading disabilities performed significantly higher than children with a cochlear implant, but at the same time lower than typically developed children on the test of phonological working memory.

The purpose of this study was to examine experienced family counselors view regarding the concept of conflict avoidance in couple relationships. Twelve family counselors working in different parts of Sweden was interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. They were asked to reflect on the following: their description of the concept of conflict avoidance, the consequences of conflict avoidance in couple relationship, gender differences and their own view on how to create conditions for constructive, therapeutic work in this respect.The result shows that the fear of conflicts, difficulty in expressing needs, different perceptions and expectations together with a difficulty to negotiate about differences, creates a lack of emotional and physical contact together with an absence of dialogue. The consequences of this in the long-term, a majority of the respondents perceived, are feelings of anger, resignation, powerlessness and unhappiness..

The purpose of the study is to examine the multilingual student?s use of IT in school.The study also highlights the teacher?s view of development and how they use IT in their own teaching.A qualitative approach study was conducted to acquire a deeper understanding of students' language learning by using IT. In the study, it was assumed socio-cultural perspective in which learning takes place through interaction with others.The result shows that multilingual students have difficulty understanding information available on the internet and they are either waiting to meet a teacher to get a clearer picture of what to do or doing tasks even though in some cases misunderstand the task. Language teachers also confirm student?s impression and at the same time express the concern that students are reading less.This study shows that there may be correlation between students' learning motivation and an understanding of instructions online.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand and examine the problem andreason why second language pupils have difficulties reaching the goals of thecurriculum in ?Swedish as a second language?. The study is based on interviews withtwo second language teachers and Vygotskijs and Antonovskys theories. The interviewswith teachers gave a broader view on why these difficulties exist and whatconsequences might occur. This analysis shows that there can be different reasons as towhy pupils can not reach the goals in their second language that are set for them.

This essay examines migration paths through Sweden. There has been a debate in August 2010 that Sweden is regarded as a backdoor for non European immigrants to come over Denmark. It has been discovered through Denmark?s statistics and is regarded as negative by the Danish government. Denmark and Sweden are two countries that are socio- , economically- and culturally similar, but went in two different directions, especially with immigration policy.

Social media provides, as many points out, new possibilities for marketing. Marketing in social media requires a two way communication, rather than the traditional marketing where the communication model is typically sender ? receiver.To create a marketing campaign that is suitable for a two way communication model has its difficulties and risks as well as its opportunities. Opportunities in the sense that the campaign can become a viral, a Word of mouth and create a Buzz, which will reach potential customers, to a bigger quantity for lower costs, with a message that will make a different impact from the types of commercial messages we are used to. Risks in the sense that the message, if not properly aimed and phrased, can be turned overnight into something that humiliates the company and possibly harm its brand.The difficulties in creating such a campaign is to create something that will catch people?s attention, discuss and forward it, while at the same time avoid getting hurt.We aim to describe the internet from a cultural context, and from that point of view explore the types of misunderstandings which often seem to happen when a corporate message is created and sent out in social media, how to avoid putting the image of a company in danger when doing this, and examine if there is ways to know how the message will be received.

The construction and use of buildings in the EU accounts for half of the EU?s extracted materials and energy consumptions, and a third of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, the construction sector has responded to such concerns by focusing on post production energy efficiency. However, new findings indicate that upstream construction processes influence emissions significantly ? necessitating a shift in focus to include material choices and building processes.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

I vår uppsats har vi tittat närmre på styrdokumenten för ämnet fysik i den svenska gymnasieskolan. Vi har jämfört innehåll och formuleringar mellan ämnesplan 2011 och kursplan 2000 för att lokalisera och analysera likheter och skillnader dem emellan. En närläsning av både styrdokumenten och didaktisk- och pedagogisk forskning gjorde denna jämförelse och analys möjlig. Vi som blivande pedagoger vill med detta arbete bidra med vår syn på styrdokumenten för fysikämnet i gymnasieskolan. Genom vårt arbete kom vi fram till att vetenskapsteori (Nature of Science) och samhällsfrågor (Socio-Scientific Issues) har fått en mer betydande roll än tidigare.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate how and why teachers in New Zealand use portfoliosas a part of their teaching. The purpose is also to investigate if, and in that case how, a sociocultural perspective on learning can be shown through the work with portfolios. Toinvestigate this we have made a case study in New Zealand where we interviewed sixteachers. The result of the investigation shows that our teachers use portfolios in both asummative and a formative way. In a summative way to gather what the children have done inschool, and in a formative way to help the students to assess what they have done, how theyhave done it and what they are going to do next.

This thesis deals with urban planning in connection with social and spatial integration.It´s a study of a new planning project in Malmö in southern Sweden. It´s an interesting case because this new, fashionable area will be located next to areas facing socio-economical challanges and stagnation. By using two theoretical models I analyse how the visions for planning a city are formulated and applied when policy is going to be operated. My models are ?the balanced community? and ?the dual community? .The conclusion is that the focus for Malmö and Hyllie is going towards emphasing the creation of attractive but segregated districs in a city.