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.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och analysera processen från policy till praktik och att exemplifiera detta utifrån hur arbetet med kommunikationsplattformen i Lunds kommun har gått till väga. Ett viktigt mål är också att utifrån detta konstruktivt försöka bidra till plattformens fortsatta implementering. I uppsatsen identifieras aktiv kommunikation, kärnvärdesprofilering och effektiv implementering som organisatoriska nyckelbegrepp.Utgångspunkten är fyra dokument som utgör kommunikationsplattformen för Lunds kommun och en utvärdering av implementeringsarbetet för kommunikationsplattformen. Dessutom har även tre intervjuer genomförts med nyckelpersoner i kommunen. Med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av dokumenten och intervjuerna görs en nulägesanalys av situationen och problematiken tematiseras.Det sista steget i uppsatsen är att skapa konkreta förslag till åtgärder.

Citizenship and immigration policy are controversial aspects of the European integration project. Fourteen years ago Roger Brubaker stated that the vital differences between German and French citizenship policy were unthinkable to harmonise. This paper therefore seeks to investigate whether the old image of the two countries are accurate. By evaluating citizenship and immigration policies in today's context with the increasing influence of European Union policy I here present a more correct picture of the situation in both countries. Partly to see how the harmonisation has come this far.

The relationship between dividend policy and investment is a controversial area and the relationship between these two may differ depending on the company's priorities. The study examines this more closely by studying dividend policy's impact on investment and how it differs depending on the company?s market capitalization. The study is based on companies listed on the OMX Stockholm within the segments Large Cap and Small Cap, during the period between 2003-2012. Secondary data was obtained from each company's annual reports where relevant data was used to operationalized into measurable variables.

The aim of this thesis is to develop two idealtypes of politics to help serve as instruments in understanding and analysing the view on politics held by top civil servants in the municipality of Lund Sweden. The two ideal types developed here are symbolic sense making politics and rational instrumental politics. These two ideal types were applied to material from a qualitative survey to help bring out clear results and to help with the interpretation of the material The results of the study showed that the two idealtypes could not help to clearly categorize the civil servants views on management by objectives. But while categorizing the top civil servants views the important features of policy documents the ideal types were helpful. By using the ideal types I came to the conclusion that the view on policy documents was mainly characterized by sense making politics.

This study treats cultural policy, it´s view of the value of literature, and how this view varies within different fields of cultural policy. The aim of the essay is to find different competing approaches through an investigation of texts from three different fields within cultural policy. The fields investigated are: The publishing subsidy of the National Council for Cultural Affairs, which values above all quality literature. En bok för alla, concentrates on spreading quality literature to new groups in society. Centrum för lättläst, which values that the contents of a text are successfully delivered to, and understood by, the reader.

It is not unusual that women and children fall behind in development countries. It is not even unusual that these groups are exposed to all forms of discrimination due to the countries lack of capacity to erase poverty. We also know that women and children in a larger extent suffers from the shortage of proper health conditions. India is one of these countries. It is a country where women even before birth are exposed to discriminatory family planning.

This thesis aims at analyzing why the municipality of Flen, in the eastern part of Sweden, has experienced strong depopulation for the last forty years in spite of its relative vicinity to Stockholm. The study uses current theories on regional developement, population theory and theories on regional enlargment to help explain and to evaluate the different regional factors that affect the developement of Flen on the local level. The thesis is primarily focused on the subject of regional policy and strategies to meet regional depopulation. The study also gives a presentation of the strategies of major regional institutions as well as analyzing what impact regional policy have on local policy in the municipality of Flen.Interviews with local officials, politicians and other people representing the population of Flen were carried out to achieve a better understanding of the specific challenges that the municipality faces and of the measures that are taken to meet them. Regional policy in Sweden prioritises measures that promote regional enlargment to link the housing and labour markets together with the regional infrastructure.

For the past decades, culture has been given a role as a factor for local and regional development. But what is meant by development and in what ways culture can be of importance in this aspect can be unclear. This thesis examines the perception of the role for local and regional development of one specific cultural place and network ? the cultural cooperative Not Quite in Fengersfors, Sweden. I study the way the role as developer is expressed and interpreted in the discourse of the cultural workers who are members of the network and in the discourse of public cultural policy in the region Västra Götaland and in Åmål municipality.

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.

The aim of this paper is to get a deeper understanding if research about international relations has any practical meaning. The main focal point is about the importance of the scholar idea soft power, and its meaning on foreign policy actions through expressions. A quantity and quality method is used. The point of the main theory that concerns international relations takes a rationalistic perspective, and expands it to the notion that ides can have an impact on policy outcomes. Three different types of research utilization can be traced to determine in which way an idea is getting implemented.

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.

This Bachelor?s thesis examines and describes the governmental cultural policy in Sweden. The relation between the state and the market in society is in focus. Earlier research is used to describe the development of cultural policy in Sweden after the world war two until today. Two governmental bills are examined and described, one from 1974 and one from 2009.

The topic of this thesis is immigration policy in the European Union with focus on the Schengen cooperation and illegal immigration. Immigration policies and other policy areas such as asylum and refugee policies have become hot topics on the EU agenda in recent years. Partly because of cooperations like Schengen, but also because a need of a common immigration and asylum policy has emerged.The purpose of the thesis is to give a better understanding of the relations that might be found between illegal immigration to the EU and the Schengen cooperation. Schengen plays an important role in dealing with international migration in the EU and will probably continue to do so in the future.The thesis is a comparative case study with Spain and Germany as the two specific cases. Their national immigration policies are examined and put in relation to the Schengen cooperation.

The concept of national security has been a matter for debate during recent years, especially in academic fields. Criticism has surfaced since the end of the cold war, directed towards the traditional perspective's dogmatic focus on armed threats and interstate war. Questions concerning an oncoming paradigm shift have been raised, regarding a widening of the security agenda among national states to also include alternative threats, such as environmental hazards. In this thesis, the focus lies on the effects that climate changes have caused in the Swedish national security agenda during the last 15 years. Swedish policy documents show that there have been some major changes, not only the widening of the security agenda but the entire security domain seems to have changed.