Virtual communities are a phenomenon that is becoming more common as the information technology comes with in reach for the general public. This report will bring the theories and construction of a virtual community together. The purpose of this report is to describe the different theories that have emerged from the research within this field and to examine the work procedures that have been used during the development of a site for a MDA-community. The MDA-website is a homepage on the Internet that was developed to bring the students closer together. The report describes the work of the project group, why the website was not completed and at the end the theories are looked at on the basis of the construction of the website..

The overall purpose of this study has its starting point in theories about the consuming society and its advertising. I have examined what kinds of methods that are being used in TV-commercials for beauty products, to influence the consumers. To study advertising, a semiotic method, symbolic interactionism and other theories which discuss symbols and influences, have been used. Six different TV-commercials for beauty products have been examined.The results from this study indicate that the advertiser apply to feelings such as, happiness, a sense of satisfaction, status and success, to affect the consumers behaviour. The findings in this research are discussed in the light of different theories which deal with the significance and the meaning of symbols..

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to compare existing theories and policies on CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) with the actual situation among practising teachers of ESL (English as a Second Language) of secondary schools in Sweden. The evaluation focuses on the differences between theories and reality, and discusses why, if any, the differences exist. Some background information on second language acquisition is provided, and recent theories and standpoints within the field of CALL are mentioned to highlight the differences between theory and reality. The evaluation was made by handing out a survey to 33 teachers of ESL, asking questions about their use of computers in their everyday teaching. The survey shows that the gap between the theories and standpoints within the field of CALL, and the reality of teachers in schools often is huge.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to make an outline of different methods and theories within the field of bibliometrics and critically review their strengths and weaknesses. The author studied literature that discussed bibliometric methods and theories. The number of empirical studies that are based on bibliometric methods and theories are numerous and where principally excluded, but some empirical studies were included as part of the argumentation for and against different methods and theories. The author first gives an outline of which methods and theories there are and describes their different strengths and weaknesses. Citation analysis has many different fields of application such as information retrieval, mapping science, evaluative studies and monitoring literature.

This essay examines the differences and similarities, weaknesses and strengths of the two Cognitive Semantic theories Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Principled Polysemy Approach to Meaning Analysis. To illustrate the two theories, the Swedish verb-particle construction "gå upp" is examined and analyzed accordingly. The results showed differences in the number of polysemous meaning found. The methodological evaluation showed that the differences in the underlying ideas concerning meaning-construction behind these two theories make them incompatible..

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how frequently, and in witch ways, theories concerning the "late-modern" society are being used in the contemporary research of social work. My thesis is that theories concerning the late-modern society could be useful in social work research, foremost to shed light on, and broaden the understanding of, dilemmas and problems that are specific to the contemporary society. In the study I'm investigating all doctoral dissertations on social work written in Sweden between the years 2003 and 2006, and to execute the study I've applied a text analysis method in four steps. Simplified the four steps of the analysis can be said to investigate, if, how frequent, and in what way theories on the late modern society is being used in social work study. I'm also specifically investigating how problems exclusive to the late-modern society is being taken under consideration in the dissertations.In the analysis of my results I take a critical theory approach and I also discuss if theories on late-modernity is to be seen as a paradigm in the field of social work science.

This study focuses on nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Anchored in theories that this region historically has been characterized by a nationalism that is based on the ethnic group rather than on liberal or civic concepts, it is the purpose of this study to explore whether these theories still apply in recent times when the region has been liberalized, for example manifested in the entry to the European Union. The research question has been tested through analysis of the constitutions of a number of Central and Eastern European countries in order to investigate what type of nationalism that the states have codified in their basic political documents. The results show that some of the states give expression to the historical ethnic nationalism in their constitutions, which indicates that the theories still are relevant..

This is a graduation project in Innovation Management, which seeks to enlighten new theories within the major subject ? the multi?faceted innovation process.The reader is hereby invited to an insight in the more complex perspectives of these types of theories than what has previously been explained in simplified ways.We have conducted research on a company within the cleantech market; Cellkraft AB. The company develops and produces fuel cells amongst other products, which have emerged during their research and development in the fuel cell technology. Cellkraft works in a high?tech frontline market where innovation is key.

The aim of this political scientist paper is to describe and analyze the quasi state Iraqi Kurdistan 1992-2006 using the theory of Kolstö about how and why quasi states develops and the theory of Pegg regarding how the international society deal with quasi states. A qualitative case method is used. In the study the two theories are combined. Iraqi Kurdistan is used as a case to study to confirm Kolstö?s and Pegg?s theories.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how people from Iran experience reading in their mother tongue, Persian, compared to how they experience reading in Swedish and if there was a difference. The questions to be answered in the thesis were: What is the dominant purpose when people read their mother tongue and when they read in Swedish. Do they read because they need information, because they want to relax or do they, when they read, reflect on their own lives? The method was qualitative, interviews were conducted with 8 Iranians living in Sweden. The theoretical background consists of a description of theories on reading and theories on language and identity.

The purpose of this study has been to compare the present with the future syllabus of mathematics. With a text analytical approach has questions about how the structure is different, how the look at knowledge has changed and which learning theory that characterizes the two syllabus been answered. As a theoretical framework I adopt three different learning theories, behaviourism, cognitivism and the socio-cultural perspective. The pervious research I have looked at is the concept of knowledge an the underlying theories to previous curriculum. During the increase results in the greatest difference seen in the structure.

The aim of this report is to examine the possibilities to use network theories to perform vulnerability analysis on complex networks. The scoop of this work is also to improve the possibilities to chart, analyze and present the vulnerability in a power grid. In this report it has been, using power outage statistics, possible to verify, that network theories can be used to evaluate the vulnerability of an infrastructure network. However further studies to establish values on how vulnerable a network is are needed..

The activity of interest groups in the political process of the European Union has given rise to a broad debate concerning the effect on European democracy these groups have. As relatively powerful political actors, the question of these groups? views on the EU and how the union should be is an important one. The status of these groups owns democratic representation also affects the democratic status of the EU. Being based on a number of theories, this study adopts an ideology analysis for the purpose of testing these theories on two cases ? the Swedish environmental organizations World Wide Fund for Nature and The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Purpose This thesis tries to create an understanding of how male homosexual entrepreneurs, both as persons and as a concept, relates to the fact that entrepreneurship, as well as the society as a whole, is heteronormative. Moreover, it examines by what methods the male homosexual entrepreneurs cope with the seemingly paradox of a homosexual man who also is an entrepreneur. Method The method has been qualitative from a social construction-point of view. We have made semi-structured interviews with nine male homosexual entrepreneurs and structured the findings from the interviews with a computer programme and mind mapping techniques. We have compared the structured findings with theories, in an abducting manner, to find out an answer to the purpose of this thesis.

A dilemma often met by entrepreneurs is whether or not to share information about their business ideas in order to increase the probability for success. The reason for sharing information is presumed to be an increased ability to develop the business idea, whereas the reason for maintaining secrecy would be to protect the idea from being stolen. Common as this dilemma is in practice, it is not very well covered in the entrepreneurial theories. The purpose of this thesis is to elaborate the theories in this subject by investigating an entrepreneurial case. The case shows that one possible solution to the dilemma is a situation-based information sharing.