Thesis purpose: The purpose of the master thesis is to analyse the battle of meaning creation regarding the notion of smoking and to reveal the production of unequal power relations. The battle is fought by different stakeholders through means of language and the study focuses on the tobacco industry in Germany. Methodology: A critical discourse analysis is applied with a qualitative research strategy. Our data collection was inspired by grounded theory and is limited in scope through a relevant case within the context of smoking in Germany. Empirical data is collected by means of an internet based document study of publicly available texts.

The purpose of this study was to examine how girls and boys are described by social workersin psycho-social assessments in child and adolescent psychiatry. The questions at issue wereif girls and boys are described in different ways and if gender related patterns could be found.The study was both qualitative and quantitative. I used textual analysis as a method anddiscourse analysis as theory.Results: Sexes were generally described differently. Girls are depicted from how they are andhow they look and boys are described by what they do and their behaviour. The mother isdescribed as the person who is most responsible for children of both sexes.

Torstensson, Niklas (2012): Anledningar till olikheter mellan Svenska kommuners skolkvalitet (Causes behind the differences in Swedish municipality´s quality of school) Örebro University.This essay is an explorative case study that will compare four Swedish municipalities quality of local school system against the municipality ´s backgrounddata and a governing document: Skolplan. This study begins in a previous benchmarking study made by one of Sweden?s teachers unions Lärarförbundet. This is a statistical study that ranked the Swedish municipalities against each other?s according to their accomplishments in a number of areas related to their school systems.

The purpose of the thesis was to analyse three action films; Collateral Damage from 2002; Clear and Present Danger from 1994; and Scarface from 1983, in order to see how Colombians are represented in these movies.The action genre comprises of different stereotypes where the hero and the villain are represented in conjunction to each other. The analysis is about the way the films content and form are used to uphold the representation of Colombians, but also the villain and the hero more generally.Critical Discourse Analysis was used, as main method, and the concepts of denotation and connotation guided the analysis. The main conclusion is that the three movies reproduced an already established collective stereotype of Latin Americans, stereotype that includes both Colombia and Colombians..

This essay is an analysis of mythologies in the Swedish women´s magazine VeckoRevyn. The magazine?s own explicit purpose is to break down the unhealthy opinion of what beauty is in their industry today. By content and linguistic analysis the results of this study are interconnected to the beauty myth as it was established by Naomi Wolf in 1991. The goal is to pinpoint how VeckoRevyn?s question and answer columns construct relationships to their readers, and the mythologies that they maintain.

This is a study of democracy on the local level. It?s a comparison between the municipalities of Mo?rbyla?nga and Mo?nstera?s in the region of Kalmar in Sweden based on most similar design. The question is if the structure of the political organisation affects the quality of democracy, with focus on the reorganisaton in Mo?rbyla?nga and the quality of the political process.

Background: First Line Managers are expected to create a health promoting work environment. Research has shown that the prerequisites for accomplishing a health promoting leadership are not always the best. Aim: The aim was to elucidate the prerequisites for a health promoting leadership as First Line Manager at a University hospital in Sweden based on competence, role, support structures and own durability. Results: First Line Managers at the chosen hospital seems to have rather good conditions for conducting a health promoting leadership. All respondents did have a university degree and most thought that their competence corresponded well with the role.

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive. With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things.

The thesis was done in collaboration with EAB situated in Smålandsstenar. In the initial discussion faze on doing a thesis with them there was a need to analyze and ensure the strength of an existing product, cantilever racks. This included performing FEM calculations on a model and comparing the results with physical tests.EAB has two models of cantilever racks, a light duty and a heavy duty. Within the heavy duty model series there are five product variants that differ in both size and load capacity. We will be working with the product variant with a load capacity of 1000 kg/arm which is the variant that is in the middle of the series.When we started work on the thesis we did a literature study and couldn?t find any well defined methodology that integrates both product development and computer aided design analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how masculinity and femininity are constructed in the magazine Veckorevyn, through a critical discourse analysis of 18 articles from six issues in 2011. This is done by using a variety of theories and previous research results, which is gender theory, the theory of late-modern society and media theory. The analysis shows that Veckorevyn depicts virility and feminine differently. Furthermore, pointing the results from the analysis that a change of manhood and womanhood takes place in the social practice. The selection of articles from the magazine also shows that Veckorevyn seems to promote gender equality. .

Agricultural drainage is widely used to manage the amount of water in the ground in order to improve conditions for cultivation. However the effects of drainage companies on water regimes are considerable leading to runoff changes such as altered stream flows, peak flows and water levels. In a greater extent this could imply an increased risk for floods along affected watercourses. This study analyzes the extension of agricultural drainage within the drainage basin of Trosaån in Sweden by ArcGIS mapping. In a Statistical analysis, historical variation in streamflow in relation to mean precipitation and mean temperature are investigated for the study area.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine high school students? understandings and experiences of gender equality and to critically study the formulations and the basis of the project from Save the Children Sweden which are the basis for this master thesis. By using critical discourse analysis and gender theories the formulations and basis of the project and the interviews has been analyzed. The analysis of the project showed neglect for intersectional perspectives and taken for granted hidden opinions about masculinities and femininities. The interviews have been conducted with four high school students, and the students felt that they attend schools which are equal between genders.

This study has examined how teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools work to foster a critical perspective through the education in the subject of Swedish. The study is based on qualitative interviews conducted with three teachers, who have given their views on the role of source criticism and critical analysis of literature in the subject of Swedish. Furthermore, they have described how they incorporate these views into their own teaching.The study has shown that the teachers find that source criticism and literary analysis are interconnected, since both depend on a general critical approach, which they both help foster. The main question the study examined was how Swedish education could help foster a critical perspective. The interviewed teachers' ways of working point out a way: teacher C has integrated source criticism and referencing into most of their education, which makes them central to the education in Swedish.

Capital structure is without doubt one of the most frequently studied and controversial areas of modern financial theory, and will certainly continue to receive considerable attention from researchers worldwide. There is still no universal explanation of how an optimal capital structure would be designed for maximum appreciation, despite the development of several theories focusing on the subject. Equity and debt are the two main financing options that in combination explain the business's capital structure. The results of several research studies conducted in the subject has many times pointed out that there are specific factors that are directly related to the company's capital structure, and that there are clear sectoral differences in corporate debt. A study of the capital structure is considered important and interesting to implement due to the reasons above and the purpose of this study is to analyze and try to explain the similarities and differences between different industries in terms of how growth, profitability and size affect the debt level.

A frequently asked question in real estate marketing is at what time of the year it is optimal to invest or sell. The aim of the project was to answer this question and to generate a prediction model over real estate located in the centre of Stockholm that takes seasons into account. With acquired sales statistics in Stockholm between 2010 and 2013 it was possible to perform a linear least square regression, also known as Ordinary Least Square (OLS), with describing qualities and season of sale as parameters. Statistical problems such as Multicollinearity and Heteroskedasticity have been taken into account when deriving the model. The result was a highly accurate prediction model indicating the profitability of investing in real estate during the summer and selling during the autumn..