The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the research library of Linnæus University is used by students as a meeting place. Building upon Putnam's theory of bonding and bridging social capital and Audunson's conception of high and low intensive meeting places, it aims to explore the research library's potential for creating social capital and thus strengthening both learning and democracy in a university context. Borrowing part of the survey design from a study conducted as part of the Norwegian PLACE project, this study collects responses from 134 students as to their use of the library as a meeting place. The results show that the Linnæus University library is used for a variety of meetings of both high and low intensity, why it should provide a good setting for the creation of social capital. There seems to be a connection between how often one visits the library, as well as to which department one belongs, and how one uses the library as a meeting place.

South Africa has been among the top ten wine producing countries for at least 20 years. Even though the land under grapevines is decreasing globally it is still increasing in Africa. The awareness of environment has strengthen the last years and South African producers experience a high demand of environmentally friendly produced wine, especially from the European market. This demand was the driving force behind the development of the world unique sustainability certification, Integrated Production of Wine (IPW), which is inscribed in the South African legislation. What makes this certification unique is that consumers can trace their product all the way back to the farming practices owing to the identity number specified on the IPW Integrity & Sustainability seal on certified products.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.

This MA thesis analyzes how the protagonists and the narrative structure relates to ?the Child? as a linguistic/cultural construction in Mare Kandre?s early authorship (1984-1991). A thematic of children portraits defines this period of Kandre?s writing, which consits of the following works: In a Different Country (1984), The Annunciation (1986), Bübin?s Kid (1987), The Burning Tree (1988) and Aliide, Aliide (1991).Linguistic components, such as the word ?child?, the name ?Kid? and a reconstruction of the concept of childhood, holds an actuate position in these narratives when they first appear in direct relation to the protagonists. This suggests how generally accepted categories and concepts consciously are at work in Kandre?s writings.

Transportation of oil and gas by the Sea characterizes challenges from a safety viewpoint. In this type of transportation, different sizes of special tankers carrying oil and gas. The marine transportation of these scarce natural riches is involved with risks and hazards, which may lead to many losses; for instance, wasting oil and gas, injuries of people, damaging ships and properties, and damaging environment. The main purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the risks, hazards, and accidents during transportation of oil and gas (mainly Crude Oil, liquefied petroleum gas, and Liquefied natural gas) by the Sea with concentrating on transport safety. Hence, a better understanding of these risks and hazards can contribute to decrease of addressed losses.This study is carried out on risks associated with maritime transportation of oil and gas starting with describing the general casual chain (dealing with causes, incidents, accidents and consequences/causalities), continuing with describing risk analysis techniques (including event tree analysis and fault tree analysis) and risk control measures/options, and finally implementing aforesaid investigations on real data from two areas; namely UK territorial waters and the Baltic Sea.In this study, the results of analyzing data from 1991 to 2010 in UK territorial waters revealed that collision and grounding were two most common accidents in terms of crude oil tankers, LPG and LNG carriers in which 44% of all accidents were equally divided between collision and grounding.

Since 1993 the Swedish Forestry Administration conducts a nation-wide inventory of wood-land key habitats covering all forest land in Sweden. The inventory aims at mapping and describing habitats where redlisted species occur or can be expected to occur. According to the inventory stand history is crucial to the presence of red-listed species. However, the current knowledge of stand history in woodland key habitats is very limited. The purpose of this work is to describe stand history in woodland key habitats, i.e. fire history, human activities - mainly cuttings - and structural changes.

ABSTRACT Introduction: This study is based on Aantonovskys SOC-theory; Sense of Coherence. SOC can be described as a theory which describes how a person experience her existence and the theory is based on three key expressions; comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Aim: The aim of the study is to examine a group of elderly (>80 years) men and women who live alone to investigate how many percent of the group that estimate a high value of SOC. The study aims to investigate which factors contribute to the fact that a person achieve a high value of SOC and increase the understanding about how these factors concretely can appear in a persons life. Methods: Questionnaire (SOC scale) and Interviews.

The paper is a research of"The Library project", a three-year collaboration project betweenArbetarnas Bildningsforbund, Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan, Sveriges Författarförbund and public libraries at 14 places in Sweden.The goal of the project is to find new forms for collaboration between libraries, authors and organisations for adult eduacation under the motto "two branches of the same education tree".The purpose of this research is to make a close description of the project and also look at the goals anf purposes of the different actors in the project. The main thought is that the different goals and purposes have caused at least some of the problems in the project..

AimThe purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-perceived health and level of physical activity among the staff at The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences (GIH). We focused on the following questions:How does the amount of physical activity affect the self-perceived health among the staff at GIH?  Are there any gender differences in self-perceived health following the amount of physical activity? Do the self-perceived health and the amount of physical activity differ between the various age groups? Are there any differences between the staff responsible for health education compared with the other staff?MethodWe chose a validated questionnaire for our study. It was a combination of two already previously validated questionnaires together with our own supplementary background questions. The questionnaire was presented to 96 respondents and we received 76 answers.

The ability to detect protein-based biomarkers, which are linked to different diseases like colorectal cancer, is very important as a diagnostic tool. Usually complex biological samples like blood are studied which will contribute to different technical issues when performing an assay. The aim with the project is to optimize and develop the high throughput protein detection technique Proximity Extension Assay, PEA, into a 96-plex panel, in hopes of discovering an expression profile for colorectal cancer. PEA was developed by Olink Bioscience and allows specific proteins in a sample to be quantitatively transformed into nucleic acid sequences that are subsequently detected and quantified with real-time PCR. Two proximity probes containing oligonucleotide sequences bind pairwise to target protein and when brought in proximity, a DNA polymerase will extend a hybridization arm from one probe over to the second forming a double-stranded DNA sequence that can serve as a template in real-time PCR.

The purpose of this study is to map out and to analyze the spatial variation of female representation at the national level in established democracies. The aim is also to explain the variation in the female representation. The main questions that the paper tries to answer are:1.How does women representation in established democratic parliaments vary?2.Why does women representation in established democratic parliaments vary?This study is a comparative and statistic study, i.e. a study that includes a bigger number of countries and where quantitative analysis methods are used in order to achieve comparative analyses.

In Sweden plans to build high speed railways have been around since the early 1990s and the planshave developed to be more precised since. The future Swedish high-speed rail network is supposedto consist of two lines. Götalandsbanan; from Stockholm to Gothenburg, and Europabanan fromJönköping through the Öresund Region to Hamburg.The description of the aim to build high-speed railways in Sweden has in former reports always beento achieve rapid passenger traffic between big Scandinavian cities and Europe. There are almostnothing mentioned about the possibilities of high-speed transports of cargo on these railways. Thisstudy aims to clarify the freight transport market for Götalandsbanan and Europabanan.Today there is only one transport system with high-speed freight trains.

This thesis suggests an explanation for how it is possible for individuals living in an unsafe neighborhood to expressa highlevel of security. Araby is the district in Växjö municipality withthe highest level of insecurity. Within the district, there is acategory of individuals in security-measurements showing a high degree of security. Inhabitants living in house in Araby also seem to show a higher level of security than inhabitants in the same accommodation in other neighborhoods in the municipality.The study's purpose is to understand how individuals belonging to an unsafe neighborhood can experience a high degree of security.Qualitative data were collected from an observation in Araby and from interviews with individuals living in house in the district.Previous research has shown that security in the surrounding area depends on several factors, such as disorders, the degree of social control and personal opinions. Thestudy shows how a distinction to places and people in the district can explain the degree of security.

This document presents calculations of adjusted GDP based on satellite household accounts for the year 2001 with the purpose to compare adjusted and official GDP for Sweden, Germany, Estonia and Finland. Household production in each country is estimated using time use survey data from Eurostat and a monetary value is estimated using average wage (after taxes) for each country. The results indicate that the value of household production using this methodology increases GDP with between 42% (Finland) and 55% (Germany) compared to official GDP statistics. A comparison of GDP/capita between the countries included in the study shows that the GDP/capita in Germany increases more that the other countries due to the relatively high proportion of time used for household production (mainly German women) combined with a high average wage. In fact, the results show that Germany has higher adjusted GDP/capita than both Finland and Sweden (but Germany has lower GDP per capita when official statistics is used for the comparison).

The purpose of this paper is to try to get an understanding of the underlying causes and reasons that students starting in seventh grade junior high school seek out a particular group, and the extent to which they do so.The work is based on the questions: How do students perceive the meeting with their prospective bench-companion in a new composite class? What should a teacher consider when it comes to bench placement in a new composite class? Do the students change, and if so to what extent, friends when they start high school? What are the factors that affect/have affected the students' choice of friends? How large a role does the school play for pupils relationships? What thoughts and feelings do the students have regarding new encounters?I have conducted in-depth interviews with six adolescents in grade seven as the basis for the understanding of how students relate to group selection and group affiliation, and I have then compared this material with previous research on the subject. Furthermore I have availed myself of literature in social- and group psychology.The conclusion which has emerged is that the most important component of a group-process is the sense of solidarity and security, and the results show that students largely retain their old relationships rather than adding new, when they start high school. Hence the teacher plays an important role in ensuring that any imbalance in the group is offset and make sure that nobody is excluded, but also to help make room for new groups and be aware of the sensitive and responsive phase of life that the young people are in..