A case study was done of Sthlm Policy Group, a consulting agency that mainly targets NGOs and government agencies in the peace and security sector. The goal of the case study was to explore the tendency of NGOs in Sweden to hire commercial consulting companies. The main interest was to see what the key reasons are for NGOs to hire private consulting agencies, but also to explore what problems that might be associated with such relationships. Interviews were carried out with representatives of the consulting agency, with its clients as well as with other NGOs that were identified as potential clients. The interviewed NGOs and government agencies were found to approve of the use of commercial consultants.

In this two years master?s thesis I examine the library?s representation of research and its influence upon the relationship between the library practice and the research practice. I also intend to find out what controls the representation and if it is possible to see changes in the representation over time. My source material has been texts published in the Swedish library journal ? and social domain ? Biblioteksbladet during the last decennium (2001?2011).

This project was aimed to study the degradation of polystyrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer (SBS). SBS is used to modify bitumen, the binder in asphalt. From earlier studies it is known that SBS degrades in bitumen, but the degradation products have not been identified. To be able to determine the long term effects of SBS in the environment, degradation products need to be identified. Polystyrene forms rigid blocks with polybutadiene as a rubbery matrix between the ridgid blocks.

The aim of this thesis is to practice the theoretical methods that are concerned during the product development process of two new products. The theoretical concepts that embody the two products are created out of a product specification which is given by a commissioner with a private interest. The primary tasks of the design of the concepts are aimed on the products shape, which is to be created as a flexible structure by using silicon rubber as material.The storage box is a further development of the already known food storage box, or lunch box, which is common used in consumer kitchens. The main idea is to design a flexible product by using silicone rubber. It will able the storage box to be compressed when it is not used, be storage friendly and not consume more space than necessary in a storage compartment.

This is an interview based qualitative case study on two Women's Migrant Associations in Malmoe, which I interpret as being part of a women's movement, with characteristics of a new social movement. The aim of this study is to get a deeper understanding on how the collective identity is being constructed, in this women's movement where the membership is not based on an exclusive ethnic identity.I make a two dimensional analysis that departs from a social constructivist underpinning, including the theories Transversial Politics, Postcolonial feminism and New Social Movement Theory.First I analyze the construction of collective identity from the external social and cultural context, and get confirmed that the collective identity of the movement is based on a common experience of social exclusion and a plurality of actions that aims to fight the structural injustices based on gender and ethnic discrimination. Secondly I analyze how the collective identity is being constructed and maintained from the interactions between the members of the movement, from an understanding of Transversial Politics. My findings show that the members of the movement interact in a participatory democratic way which generally corresponds to Transversial Politics. According to Transversial Politics this can lead to a construction of an empowered inclusive collective identity for the members and as my empirical study confirms it also means possibilities for deconstruction of boundaries between social groups..

The aim of this undergraduate thesis was to examine the media?s portrayal of overweight and obese children and their surroundings, using the first and third dimensions of Fairclough?s three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis. The study addressed the following questions: How does the press, in this study represented by two newspapers, portray overweight and obese children? What discourses regarding overweight and obesity among children are the most prominent in these two newspapers? What risks and negative influences in the child?s surroundings are identified, and how are they described? What social representations can the images of overweight and obese children originate from? The analyzed material consisted of 62 articles from Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet, which were analyzed using the earlier mentioned method for discourse analysis, as well as the theory of social representations. The results showed that ?the fat child? and its environment were portrayed exclusively in negative terms, and a discourse linking obesity and ill-health dominated a large part of the material.

This master thesis work was done by two students at Machine Design at KTH for Lesjöfors Stockholmsfjäder AB. The task was to develop a calculation program for gas springs. The program is going to ease the selection of gas springs for a given case of a lid that should be opened. The program is going to be used internal by sales people at Lesjöfors AB in Sweden and internationally. The program is therefore written in English.The program was developed in Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.

The purpose of this study was to examine the media?s portrayal of young people that gamble with money. Young in this study refers to people in the age 13 to 30. The following questions were examined: How does the press, in this case three newspapers, portray young people who gamble with money? What discourses in the selected newspapers, regarding young people who gamble with money, are the most prominent?The method used in this study was Faircloughs three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis which was used together with a social constructionist point of view.

The following project has been made in collaboration with, Denator AB, a biotechnology enterprise. One-dimensional electrophoreses have been used to analyze protein contents of tissue samples. Tissue samples have been either treated according to the company´s newly developed tissue treatment technique or not treated at all and comparisons between these samples have been made. In order to see differences in protein patterns between samples more clearly, a conversion method has been developed where electrophoresis gel visual patterns are used to produce curves, similar to densitometer curves.Denator AB would like to know if the proteins in their treated samples will change visibly over 48 h when incubated at room temperature. This has been investigated using the above mentioned method.

A growing number of cities and municipalities in Sweden begin to work with city models in 3D. For the most part the models are used for visualizations of ongoing planning processes, but also for the analysis of noise, shadow studies and environmental disaster simulations.Gothenburg continues to develop the use of 3D maps in municipal operations and is demanding a way to create building elements (walls), which generates in 3D buildings, from roof constructions that are mapped from the primary map. A method has been investigated in the present study. The results are then presented as a 3D model of buildings, along with a terrain map that will facilitate the localization of the area. The created 3D buildings are then compared with roof-data from the primary map to see how well they harmonize with each other.

This master?s thesis aims to study the practice of separating popular genres of fiction from the rest of the fiction stock, often seen at public libraries. The method being used is critical discourse analysis according to Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional conception of discourse. The textual dimension of this analysis is the book shelf itself and the sociocultural practice is the everyday practice at a public library of supplying and mediating books to the visitors.

There are several methods avaliable to find areas of interest, but most fail at detecting such areas in cluttered scenes. In this paper two methods will be presented and tested in a qualitative perspective. The first is the darg operator, which is used to detect three dimensional convex or concave objects by calculating the derivative of the argument of the gradient in one direction of four rotated versions. The four versions are thereafter added together in their original orientation. A multi scale version is recommended to avoid the problem that the standard deviation of the Gaussians, combined with the derivatives, controls the scale of the object, which is detected.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the perception of Christianity in nine textbooks andidentify changes in-between them and over time. The content of the textbooks will also bediscussed in relation to the steering documents connected to each book.I have chosen to focus on three curriculums, Lgy 70, Lpf 94 and Gy 11. My researchquestions are: how Christianity is treated in textbooks in religious studies in relation to theperception of Jesus, God and man? What are the differences/similarities across time andlearning materials? In what way does the textbooks change with the syllabuses?Text consumption and discursive practices is analyzed with the help of a set of tools thatare based on the critical discourse analysis and Fairclough's three-dimensional model. Theimage of Jesus, if described by a textbook, is also analysed.Three textbooks were chosen from each curricula.

Studies of the information needs of library patrons are necessary in order for the library to serve the community. Alas, studies of non-heterosexual persons are rare in the field of Library and Information Science in Sweden. This study aims at examining the information situation of women in same-sexed parenthood by means of analysing their situation as norm-breaking. The study is done through examining the specific information needs of this group, how they seek and receive information, what barriers they encounter and what function the library has in this information situation. A queer theoretical approach to heteronormativity in combination with McKenzie?s two-dimensional model of information seeking is used to perform a qualitative analysis of the material.

The thermal response of a borehole field is often described by non?dimensional response factors called gfunctions.The g?function was firstly generated as a numerical solution based on SBM (Superposition BoreholeModel). An analytical approach, the FLS (Finite Line Source), is also accepted for generating the g?function. In thiswork the potential to numerically produce g?functions is studied for circular borehole fields using the commercialsoftware COMSOL.