We aim to develop knowledge of how new technology, in this case social media, can contribute to how sports fans interact with their idols. Therefore our framing of a question is to present how fans experience their contact with mixed martial arts (MMA) & ultimate fighting championship (UFC) through social media platforms. To specify our study, we also have a supplement question with in which way sports fans uses social media.We have chosen to conduct a qualitative study consisting of interviews and data observations of websites, related to the organization UFC, to approach our main question. We have interviewed nine randomly selected people with one common interest - MMA/UFC. With an implant of theories, consisting of social media, fandom and lurking, on the result of the interview and website data, we try to come closer to a conclusion for our intention with this thesis.Our conclusion is that the interviewed fans express that through the usage of social media, they feel like they have come closer to UFC.

Previous research has established coaches' important role in developing elite athletes (Durand, Bush, Thomson & Salmela 1996). Athlete enhancement and assisting athletes achieve ?peak performance? has been a major objective for elite coaches as well as sports scientists (Williams & Kendall, 2007) Despite this common goal, research also question whether sports scientists and the research they pursue really effects coaches knowledge and constitute a foundation for today and tomorrows athletic performances (Bishop 2008).  This study examined elite coaches? needs and use of sport science research as well as the interaction between elite coaches and sport scientists. Following interviews of ten elite coaches, content analysis revealed that sport science is both a formal and informal resource of knowledge for coaches. Development of athletes is seen as the main objective of research retrieval and personal and/or direct contact with the sport scientist is considered to be the best way to assemble.

I denna rapport presenteras det examensarbete som Emanuel Öhman utfört under vårterminen 2012 på Mälardalens Högskola. I rapporten redovisas det projekt som utförts för att vidareutveckla en häckvagn som används inom friidrott.Uppdragsgivaren Nordic Sport AB har i dagsläget en häckvagn på marknaden, som bland annat kommer användas i friidrotts-EM 2012 i Helsingfors. Syftet till vidareutvecklingen av häckvagnen är att sänka produktens fraktkostnad.Direktiven var att ta fram ett koncept som uppfyller kundkraven som ställs på produkten, samt att minska produktens volym och vikt, då dessa är direkt styrande av fraktkostnaden.Projektet börjades med en problemförståelsefas för att få en ökad kunskap, samt ta reda på vilka önskemål och krav som ställs på produkten. Utvecklingen av den befintliga produkten utfördes med olika produktutvecklingsverktyg.Resultatet blev en häckvagn vars helhet påminner om Nordic Sports nuvarande häckvagn, där vikt och volym reducerades. Samt att vagnens ramkonstruktion kunde dimensioneras ned efter simuleringar och beräkningar.Analysen visar att konceptet uppfyller de krav som ställs på produkten på ett mer resurseffektivt sätt än vad Nordic Sports nuvarande produkt gör och projektets mål kan ses som uppnått.I slutsatsen framgår det att projektet gått bra.

AbstractPurpose/Aim: The aim is to investigate if there are any differences in the reporting from the Olympic games and the Paralympic games, according to different periodicals or magazines, with focus on Paralymics and sports for handicapped. If so, what are those differences?Material/Method: The material consists of two periodicals, or magazines; Svensk idrott which is the official paper for the swedish Riksidrottsförbundet, and Handikappidrott, which is the official paper for the swedish Handikappidrottsförbundet. Articles considering the summer games in 1972 and 1976, 1984, 1996 and 2000 was studied with regard to models developed by Algirdas J. Greimas.

Since Sweden can be considered to be a secular society it is interesting to investigate how different actors experience swimming education in the course syllabus of sports and health education, for practicing Muslim girls in middle and high schools. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with sports teachers, practicing Muslim girls and the staff of the public swimming center in Växjö. The result shows that swimming education can be somewhat problematic, since the Muslim girls only want to attend lessons that are gender separated. In the public swimming center, there are no pools exclusively intended for women, and there are only a few times available for women every week. However, the teachers stress opportunities instead of obstacles, and the students? experience that their teachers are trying to create possibilities for them to have a gender separated swimming education.

The aim of this study was to study how Swedish youth national football players handle stressful events in sports. A longitudinal questionnaire diary was constructed from a revised version of Nicholls and Polmans (2007) design with the intention of recording in-sport and psychosocial stress, choice of coping strategy and coping effectiveness. The participants were 59 Swedish youth national football players born 1992 observed during a four day national training camp held by the Swedish Football Association. Data were drawn from a quantifying analyzing method. The main result showed that the most common stressors reported were, physical injury or pain, experiencing teammates or opponents to perform better and feeling generally insecure during training camp.

   ABSTRACT  Title:  4000 seats to Sandviken - The business discourse development from 1921 to 2012 seen through two sports stadiums in Sandviken                            Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration Author: Signe Jernberg Supervisor: Lars Ekstrand Date: March 2012 Aim:  The aim of this paper is to investigate the business discourse emergence during the 1900s and to make a contribution to how a business administration discourse can be seen today. Method: The business discourse is examined through a inventory of how business theories, practices and ideas have enabled the design of two sports facilities, Göransson Arena And Nya idrottsplatsen in Sandviken Municipality. The inventory is based on material gathered from Sandviken Municipality archives and from Göransson Arenas' own archives. The archives consist of such things as board meeting protocols, annual reports, bookkeeping, drawings, photographs and more. The method is based on Foucault's discourse analysis, focusing on his archaeological period.Results & conclusion: The archives show how business ideas, theories, and expressions can be seen in the two arenas. The results show how the concepts of customer, company and association are present in the design of the two arenas in different ways.

Title:        PR-industry: The industry that cannot promote themselves?                ? A thesis of how PR-agencies use relationship marketing to                promote themselves.Authors:    Julia Edvardsson & Jennie JonassonAdvisor:     Navid GhannadLevel:         Bachelor thesis in Marketing, (15 ECTS), Spring 2012Keywords:   Public Relations, Relationship Marketing, Relation, Interaction and NetworkPurpose:    The purpose of this thesis is to bring a better understanding for Public  Relations and for how the PR-agencies promote themselves. The thesis will explore the following questions:? How do the PR-agencies uses relationship marketing to reach out with their knowledge to their potential customers?? Are the any differences between their promotions when it comes to the agencies orientation?Theoretical framework: The chapter begins with a definition of Public Relations. After that a framework of Relationship Marketing theory is made with headlines as relations, interaction and networking.Method:      A qualitative research method, with a deductive approach, has been implemented.

Background/Problem: Since the IT-burst in 2000 it has been recession within IT-consultant firms (Sif 2004). The tendency is, however, changing slightly and IT-consultants firms are getting more assignments again (Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen ? AMS, 2004). IT-consultants firms are however still related to stressed per-sonnel (Handelskammaren 2004; Hallstedt 2001). Another critical factor is the communication between management and workers.

   ABSTRACT  Title:  4000 seats to Sandviken - The business discourse development from 1921 to 2012 seen through two sports stadiums in Sandviken                            Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration Author: Signe Jernberg Supervisor: Lars Ekstrand Date: March 2012 Aim:  The aim of this paper is to investigate the business discourse emergence during the 1900s and to make a contribution to how a business administration discourse can be seen today. Method: The business discourse is examined through a inventory of how business theories, practices and ideas have enabled the design of two sports facilities, Göransson Arena And Nya idrottsplatsen in Sandviken Municipality. The inventory is based on material gathered from Sandviken Municipality archives and from Göransson Arenas' own archives. The archives consist of such things as board meeting protocols, annual reports, bookkeeping, drawings, photographs and more. The method is based on Foucault's discourse analysis, focusing on his archaeological period.Results & conclusion: The archives show how business ideas, theories, and expressions can be seen in the two arenas. The results show how the concepts of customer, company and association are present in the design of the two arenas in different ways.

In 2009, the Swedish Basketball Federation started a Region U15 development project in order to change the structure of the regional organization to get into a more transparent and similar operations throughout the country. My purpose is to study the attitudes to the change among the region leaders in the regional operations and evaluate the change from an organizational perspective. The study is primarily based on the following questions: What are the experiences of the change process among the region leaders in the regional organization? How involved have region leaders been in the changing process? Which are the positive and negative aspects with the regional operation today? What can be done further to develop the regional operation and to what extent do the organizational change follow general organizational theories? In my study, a qualitative method was used in terms of interviews with 8 regional leaders to understand their attitude to the project and the changing process. To analyze the results of the region leaders ?responses, a transcription have been made.

AbstractThis bachelor thesis was performed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm on behalf of the Land Survey Authority. The thesis is about fish conservation and division of fishing water at official duty. It is the Land Survey Authority that examines division of fisheries, but before a case can be implemented, certain requirements must be achieved such as FBL 3:8, which prevent divisions that are deleterious for fish conservation. The purpose of this thesis is: to obtain a clearer view how FBL 3:8 should be applied in practice, how the application differs between the offices in central Sweden, and how fish care is regulated at both international and national levels.At an international level, in EU the commercial fishery is regulated through the common fisheries policy (CFP). The fisheries policy consists of a reform that will last for 10 years.

The aim of this study was to examine how sports journalists used religious metaphors when covering football during the time span of the study, and how the athletes were portrayed as a result of the usage. The aim was also to study if the usage differed between the two newspapers chosen for the study, one of which is a morning paper (Dagens Nyheters sport section) and one which is an evening paper (Sportbladet).To answer our questions we used a quantitative and a qualitative method, the later of the two was based on a metaphor analysis. The quantitative method consisted of a content analysis where different variables were examined. The time span of the study is articles from one year.The results show that the religious metaphors were used in many ways. Some religious metaphors, such as ones including the word miracle, were more prominent than others.

AbstractThis work was assigned by a technological company that manufactures gas detectors in which the sensor signal is processed using digital filters. These filters have been developed by a consultancy firm which converted previously used analog filters to digital filters. The purpose of this work has been to analyse inadequate, and sometimes erroneous, documentation from the project in order to provide the company with know-how and tools for further improvement of their products. The work has been done using the simulation software COMSOL which was bought solely for the project. Analysis showed serious flaws as well as pure errors in the consultant?s documentation.

Dogs have been held as pets for thousands of years. Dogs held today usually get some sort of training some time during their life. You can train dogs for many different reasons such as general obedience or you can train them for competition. When training a dog every behaviour is followed by a consequence. These consequences are positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment and negative reinforcement.