The Sand Catcher                                                       The thesis project The Sand Catcher investigates the encounter between permanent structures and an ever-changing landscape. The migrating sand dune Råbjerg Mile in northern Denmark is 40 meters high and moves more than 15 meters every year. By introducing a solid structure on the site, the fast movement of the sand dune is emphasised and thereby our view of time and space.Through intuitively building models with varied openings and densities I investigated how architectural elements react with sand. From these experiments a series of spatial features and effects were found, generated from the meeting with the sand.The Sand Catcher is a solid and permanent structure. The sand is the liquid element that generates new spaces, circulations and experiences.

Is the new technology always the best? This final project tries to determine if BIM is the melody of today, or if traditional 2D drawing is recommended. Perhaps a compromise is necessary, utilizing both methods.In order to answer this question, different views from the industry have been retrieved through reports, producers of software and users. The approach has consisted in building a 3D model of the school Råslättsskolan, house 01, along with interviews with people involved in the building process.When working in 2D it is hard to include the third dimension, mistakes are done and collisions happen that must be corrected, in most cases at the construction site. BIM is an incredible help since the model allows you to detect collisions and correct them.

This thesis aims to develop a theory in the under researched field of international comparative cultural policy studies. lt does so by combining theories from the fields of political scienceand cultural studies, researching how and to what extent the concepts of culture of different states have an impact on the way cultural policies are constructed.The thesis uses this theoretical development in order to research a specific problem, namely the perceived possibility that Swedish and German cultural structures are slowly converging. Two recent official policy documents from each country are the objects of study. Through comparative idea analysis and with Michiel S. D Vries theories on decentralization, the thesis explains the convergence between the countries by differing cultural views between them.

This thesis is a qualitative study of a new law that was applied in December 2010. The law is called Lagen om etableringsinsatser fo?r vissa nyanla?nda invandrare, and is meant to help newly arrived immigrants that come to Sweden to establish themselves in the Swedish society. The aim of the study is to see what discourses the Swedish government produces as a result of this new law. Interesting for the study is to see what happens in the implementation stage at a local level, in this case in the municipality of O?rnsko?ldsvik.Theoretically and methodologically I emanate from critical discourse theory and institutional theory.

The purpose of this paper is to make a feminist textual analysis of three female protagonists incontemporary novels in order to demonstrate representations of ?skeva? female bodies, deviantfrom beauty-, slender and age norms. The analysis is based on an intersectional perspective whichdemonstrates the interaction between body, sex, gender, class, sexuality and age. The theoreticalmaterial used are class theories by Bourdieu and Skeggs, performative theories by Butler, theoriesof grotesque realism by Bachtin and the female grotesque by Russo and Lundberg. The charactersall belong to the genre of the female grotesque which manifests a feminist protest and a free zonewithin patriarchal power structures.

The purpose of the essay is to examine the views on sexuality that guide the Swedish Migration board and court?s judgments and decisions in asylum cases. The essay investigates seven cases from the Swedish Migration court regarding asylum seekers from seven different countries seeking protection in Sweden due to their sexuality and/or gender identity. By applying discourse analysis, along with the theoretical perspectives of Judith Butler and the postcolonial critique of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, the essay discuss what kind of criteria and/or practice is demanded of the asylum seekers to be rendered as trustworthy. The essay concludes that the asylum seekers are considered untrustworthy by the migration authorities when not acting according to a (hetero)normative sexuality.

The purpose of the study was to learn how social structures can enable accessibility, by asking persons with visual impairment about their experiences of accessibility in the public environment in the city of Stockholm. Eleven adults with visual impairments, living in the city of Stockholm, were interviewed using two separate focus groups. The study was carried out with the objective to allow for the participants to be involved in the research process. The resulting data was analyzed on the basis of Nancy Fraser?s theory on social justice, focusing on the conceptions; needs, politicised needs, redistribution, recognition and misrecognition.

There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation.

During the autumn of 2007 I carried out an investigation within the bank and finance Sector. The aim of the investigation was to see how informal aspects could be understood in relation to equality within Bank AB? The main question was: Which are the obstacles and opportunities for equality within Bank AB? To answer the main question I asked the following questions to the material: Are there any gender related different within the organization? How are men and women represented within the internal magazine? Which are the conceptions related to sex/gender within the organization? The investigation is based on a survey, the internal magazine was investigated and finally interviews took place. Throughout the investigation I used organization theory in a gender perspective. With the gender organization theory I examined concepts as structures, leadership, symbolism and changes associated with equality.

Mergers between companies has become more and more common in Sweden and in the rest of the world with the motive to increase the competitive strength in the current markets and has an important role within organisational development of companies. When organisations merger there is not only buildings and objects that are put together but also their individual organisational structures, people, values and cultures. This can be a difficult process and can affect many people in how they think conscious as well as unconscious, feel and react.The purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of how employees are affected following a merger when changes in the organisational culture come up, and how these changes are expressed.This thesis is delimited to investigate only one company, Skruf Snus AB and only focus on their business and employees in the region of Stockholm. The thesis contains a qualitative investigation with semi structured interviews that has been carried out with eight employees at Skruf Snus AB. The thesis is partly based on a model of Schein which describes the different levels in organisational culture and partly on some theories about reactions to change in relation to the integration between the employees following a merger.The results of the investigation indicate that with a merger the whole organisational culture is affected and therefore also the employees.

Actinomycosis is a rare, deep-seated infection of the jaw of cattle that include the progressive enlargement of bone structures. It is caused by Actinomyces bovis, a gram-positive rod found as a normal commensal of the alimentary canal in otherwise healthy animals. This paper shortly describes Actinomyces bovis and its ability to cause "lumpy jaw" or actinomycosis in cattle. It will describe its pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and some clinical presentations. The incidence of symptomatic actinomycosis infection is quite low in Sweden today.

AbstractThe aim of this thesis is to examine Interreg as an instrument for regional policy in the European Union. Interreg is an initiative designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion throughout the European Union by fostering balanced development through cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation. But how does it work in practise? Three main questions are asked to answer this:How well does the implementation in the programmes work?How does the programme management look and how well does it work?What degree of efficiency does Interreg show in financial and physical effectiveness?With evaluation and implementation as theories the questions are answered together with a qualitative method. The conclusions that can be drawn is that Interreg strengthen European unions economic and social cohesion in form of integration and regional development that in many ways make it easier to travel and trade over the borders.

The media plays a key role in constructing identities and categories, as its messages influence the way we understand the world. In the debate on integration issues, categories such as ?Swede? and ?immigrant? are often treated as obvious and unproblematic. ?Swedish?, being the norm, is seldom defined   and   frequently appears   with   subtlety.   This   paper   set   out   to   study   what   characterizes Swedishness in newspaper articles on integration issues, and how it is represented in relations to immigrants.

This case study examines the new media presentation system in Alby public library. The aim is to explore if the contemporary Zeitgeist, wich according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, could be described as liquid modernity, has affected how the system was formed. The purpose is to find out how that would affect users and staff of public libaries of the contemporary. Interviews were conducted with the library staff, and plans and documents concerning the media presentation system was examined.The empirical part of this thesis starts with a study of the process that resulted in the new presentation system while the second part examines the system as such. I discovered that both the media presentation system, and the process which preceded it, contained aspects that could be traced to liquid modernity.

The aim of this master thesis is to create an understanding of what it can be like to grow older as a homosexual man in Sweden today. The study has an intersectional and queer theoretical approach and is based on eight in depth interviews with men who are aged between 68 and 82 years old. In the analysis I deal with the problem of how sexuality can be inter- preted with the experience of aging. Central to the analysis is the criticism of norms connected to age, sexuality, social- and family life and gay culture.The results show that the norm-breaking sexual orientation of the men affects their life path in terms of how to organize social life, where friends often replace the traditional family. New ways of forming relationships and living their lives imply other obligations rather than the traditional for significant others, which was shown to influence the expectations and outcome of old age in terms of care and support.