A study was conducted to investigate the new and frequently discussed concept curling parents. There were no previous studies of curling parenting, and therefore traditional classifications of parenting (Baumrind, 1967, 1980; Maccoby & Martin, 1983) have been used for comparison. Parents (N=140) born between 1959 and 1981 participated. They completed questionnaires to establish their level of curling behaviour. The high Cronbach's alfa confirmed coherence in the curlingcriteria, which implied that curling parents exists as a group.The results confirmed our hypothesis that participants exhibiting high levels of curling behaviour were permissive in their parenting style, had a bad conscience concerning their parenting and wished for more time with their children.

Consumers today are bombarded with innumerable advertising messages. The need for companies to create advertisements that consumers find relevant is thus increasing. In order to break through the ad clutter, companies have to give something extra to their customers and show that they care about them. How a company decides to communicate might then be more important than what the company actually communicates.The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the use of creative media choices induces signaling effects and enhances advertising value as well as perceived corporate consideration. The two last mentioned variables are explored as potential driving forces behind the signaling effects.

This essay aims to analyse if the Russian military operation carried out against Georgia between the 7th and 12th of august 2008 were executed with adherence to the Russian principles for military deception, maskirovka.   A superior purpose is to assess the situation according to the Swedish Armed Forces task of identifying possible needs for new or changed needs for abilities and competence.   The method used is two-alternative hypotheses which are tried by comparing actual events before and during the Russian-Georgian war with the ten methods of maskirovka, compiled from military analytical literature. Such traces of resemblance are further examined, both individually and as a part of a larger indication.   Further the essay describes the Russian art of war, the prerequisites for military surprise, information warfare in Russian doctrine, the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the principles for maskirovka.   The conclusion is that the Russian operation was executed with some adherence to maskirovka, though unspecified of to what degree.   Author of this essay is Cadet Martin Svensson of the Swedish Army, currently a student at the Armed Forces Technical School in Halmstad..

This thesis aims at investigating the two municipality?s Gislaved and Ljungby. Where the aim is to see if there is any connections, between the type and the degree of public-private partnerships, and the municipalities obtained environment performance. In this essay the starting point is that the environmental performance in the chosen municipalities is good.Interviews among local politicians and representatives for the municipalities plastic industries, has functioned as a way to test the hypothesis. Gislaved and Ljungby have thereafter been compared, in order to see if there is any similarity in the sort and the degree of public-private partnerships, and how that will affect the environmental performance. The overall questions in this essay are:How can the cooperation among the chosen municipalities and the      local business life be described? What kind of Public-private partnership      exists in the selected municipalities?Is there any difference between the municipalities, referring to      the degree of cooperation between the municipalities and the local      business life? Does the degree of cooperation affect the progress on the environmental      performance? The end result shows that the local business life doesn?t have any impact on the environmental performance.

Background: When firms grow through acquisitions it is commonly debated whether the two entities ought to be better off as standalone companies rather than as a merged company. This thesis aims at discussing this issue of M&As advantages and disadvantages in terms of source of synergies from the perspective of resource allocation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze to what extent pre-M&A differences (against similarities) in resource allocation and corporate culture between the acquiring and target firm have an impact on the post-M&A performance. Theoretical framework: Efficient market hypothesis, resource based view, strategic fit. Methodology: A longitudinal study is conducted on the EU market during 1992 to 2002 based on balance sheet and income statement data.

Since Sweden became a member of the European Union (EU) several constitutional reforms has been taking place. During this time, Sweden has also changed its view on democracy,from a collective to an individual perspective of democracy in the politics. A reasonable hypothesis and the purpose of this essay is to investigate if the Swedish government has beendeveloped towards an Europeanization.The Swedish state audit changed in a pioneering way after the EU- entry, with the formation of Riksrevisionen. Another constitutional change is that the Swedish EU- membership is being instituted in the Swedish constitution. The role of Swedish courts has also changed since the EU- entry.

This study presents an alternate viewpoint to the strive to overcome the gap between research and practitioners within paper prototyping in interaction design. Earlier research identifies three aspects of this gap, which is:Practitioners being unaware of interaction design methods and theoriesPractitioners being aware, but choosing not to apply these methods and theories, due to time, budget and constraints of labourPractitioners and research having different perspective on similar design issuesOur study was done by carrying out qualitative interviews with interaction designers based on two digital design bureaus. One of the bureaus has an expressed link to research: the other has not. Our hypothesis is that the gap would manifest as a difference in work practice between the two bureaus.Our study shows that the two bureaus have similarities in work practice and that this work practice is based on scientific methods and theories, but is adapted to fit the client and/or the project. We conclude that the overcoming of the gap might not be necessary.

There is a strong debate in the media about the CEO compensation in the listed companies and whether they deserve their high rewards. Many previous studies have shown differences in the reward system depending on the ownership structure, mostly testing for only ownership concentration or ownership category. This study aims to investigate how the influence of the owners affects the CEO reward system, testing for both the level and the structure of the reward. The sample used in the investigation is Swedish listed corporations and consists of 251 observations. A survey was also conducted but due to low response rate and because the answers are not representative for the whole sample the survey will only be used as an illustration.

This thesis emphasizes the importance of understanding the employees? attitude and motivation towards their workplace at a company that works in the advertising business. An example company; thcommunication agency PS Communication in Stockholm, was used for the empirical part to investigate the purpose. The topic is interesting since the company works in a fast changing environment with new techniques,tools and professionals and the company is also going through an expansion that include many new recruitments.The purpose in this thesis is as follows: ?the purpose of this study is to elucidate the fate of attitude and motivation of employees in relation to the workplace during business expansion, if performance is reduced and competition increases.?The analysis and results shows that attitudes andmotivation among the employees in the workplace has deteriorated, the employees agree that it is due to expansion the company is undergoing.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between SOC, attitudes towards grades, and perceived stress levels among adolescents, and whether there was any difference in this relation between gender. The first research hypothesis was: "there is a gender difference to the degree of SOC, attitude to grades, and perceived stress level". The second was that "SOC and attitude to grades, predict stress in adolescents". To answer these hypotheses, a questionnaire survey was carried out among upper secondary students, 95 boys and 89 girls. The result of the analysis showed a significant difference between the gender.

As computerized communication and the Internet have evolved, the possibility to express and affirm one?s identity in new ways has also been created. Facebook, which has taken a leading role among the social fora on the Internet and succeeded worldwide, is my choice of study due to the number of people that actively choose to present themselves on it. The purpose of this thesis is to study the identity construction on Facebook through the activities a member partakes in, as well as how the presentation of oneself is written and if it is a result of a self-reflective process of the individual.The rationale for the qualitative study has been personal interviews in order to get an insight into how the individuals use and present themselves on Facebook and - in the interaction with others ? how they construct their own identity. My hypothesis has been that we, in the interaction with others, have a great possibility to create and understand our own identities. The study results show that identity formation is a constant process and that it is indeed a self-reflective project.

In 1992, the European Union began institutionalizing the cooperation against terrorism within the EU structure. Since then, this cooperation has gone through a number of changes. From a historical institutionalistic point of departure we explain these changes by identifying sources of institutional resilience and institutional change. Based on these results, we were able to pose hypotheses of when and what category of change was most likely to take place.The results show that the cooperation against terrorism within the EU was most likely to remain stable because of strong sources of institutional resilience. If change would occur through an increase in the sources of institutional change, it was most likely to be of a less extensive category.

The purpose of this essay was to examine and shed light on bullying as a groupprocess, a social phenomenon taking place in a school setting, to increase the understanding of the phenomenon. A theoretical overview of the litterature on bullying was made to investigate bullying and to give the reader a view of the researchfield. A total of 77 articles was studied. With the intention of studying bullying from a groupsychology perspective a metaanalysis was performed discussing groupphenomenon such as rolebehavior, responsibility, cohesiveness and norms in comparison to bullying episodes.Stemming from this analysis the question whether bullying can be view as a response to groupthink emerged. This question also constituted the secondary aim of this thesis.

The calf extrator?s function has been studied, through measuring traction and how this varies in different situations, in comparison with corresponding manual traction situations. This was done against the background that excessive force at assisted calvings at dystocia can mean life threatening damages on the calf such as grave acidosis, vertebral fractures, femur fractures and rib fractures. The calf extractor has earlier been measured to pull with greater force than the established maximum force of ?two strong men?.

Concentration of protein in bovine milk is one of the most significant milk quality parameters, to a large extent determining the price for milk to the producer. Mastitis is a common disease among dairy cows, negatively affecting not only milk yield but also milk protein composition. Milk from mastitic cows tends to have lower cheese yield, negatively affected processability properties and sensory quality, due to changed protein quality and composition. Poorer milk protein quality would have an economically negative impact on dairy industry. Only few studies have investigated the short term effects of mastitis on milk protein composition.