Our lives in urban areas are becoming more and more inactive with negative effects on our mental and physical health. Natural environments and physical activity have the power to both prevent and reduce mental fatigue. Meanwhile we engage ourselves with physical activity, the nature fascinates us with its complexity. In April 2006, some of the visitors to the recreational area of Skrylle were asked to fill in a questionnaire which included questions about their habits within physical activity and the experience of nature. The questionnaires were then divided into two groups: those filled out by persons who exercise on regular basis (i.e. three or several times/week) and those who rarely exercise.

A great deal of the nature experience we get today is from travelling along our roads, which to a large extent go through the forest landscape. This makes the forest along our roads interesting to look at from a nature experience perspective. The main idea of this work is to increase the awareness of how we are affected by the forest when we travel through it and find out how the forest should be adapted to the road environment to create a pleasant nature experience as well as increase traffic safety. 0.9 % of Sweden's total forest area (equivalent to 200 000 hectares) is in close proximity to roads. Additionally, in Sweden 440 million hours are spent behind the wheel of which a great deal probably is spent on roads surrounded by forest in some form.

Stress-related diseases in Sweden have doubled since 1997. Even longterm sickness related tostress has increased over the last decade. In future there is a need of alternative methods todecrease the amount of people being affected to gain a better population health. Natureassisted therapy (NAT) was shown to be a successful method as part of the therapy of stressand burnout likewise was nature an important factor to prevent people from mentaldisorders. The aim of this study was to analyse the latest research concearning nature and itshealth effects with focus on stress and burnout patients in order to plan health promotingactivities outdoors for these patients.

In this thesis I have decided to take a closer look into my own ?backyard?. A river that runs through my hometown, Akureyri, has been a thorn in some people?s side. Glerá river has taken lives but it has also given the town possibilities to develop.

What is the European Union (EU) and which countries should be part of it in the future? These questions became topical during the first part of the 21st century when political and geographical changes hasten the need to decide the nature of the European cooperation. In the European Constitution, that never come into force, the European values that a key role but was taken away in the succeeding Lisbon Treaty. Nevertheless EU continues to expand, recently to the East and non-European countries asTurkey are now on the ?waiting-list?.

AbstractIn this study. I have compared four different schools, two preschools and two compulsory schools. My purpose has been to get a view of, to which extent they use technology in their education.I have also compared boys and girls.The result has been achieved with the aid of questionnaires.It shows that the pedagogues in the preschool, think they use technology every day. They use it in their games, experiments, food situations and even when the children are dressing them selves.The pedagogues in the compulsory schools work with technology, without reffering to the actual concept. They use the nature and experiments, to involve the children in technology.One of the schools has a film project.

The main aim in this Master thesis is to analyse how an ideological view may have influenced the shape of hierarchies with a specific concentration on the concept of fiction genre in the latest versions of the systems SAB and DDC. Our thesis is that no theoretical classification scheme can be recognized as objective. With an ideological/institutional perspective we look at the structures behind these systems. As a vehicle we use the hermeneutic circle to show the play between part and unit by focusing and analysing three different levels: the content level the concept level the ideological level. The first level is in the shape of a historical background and an analysis of concept with focus on content.

Since time immemorial, nature has been conceived of as a female entity. This ancient concept is also a recurring element in contemporary Swedish horror fiction. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the feature of nature in the selected works of Anders Fager, Andreas Marklund and Frida Arwen Rosesund and in what ways these respective depictions rely on a tradition where nature is gendered female. The theoretical starting-point for this comparative study is ecocriticism and its subcategory ecofeminism, which are modes of literary criticism where the role of nature in general, and its female connotations in particular, are appreciated as significant literary features. For executing an analysis that goes beyond what is explicit, the exploration of these three writers? texts also adopts a psychoanalytical perspective.

The aim of this study is to describe how nature is portrayed in swedish poet and critic Aase Berg?s two earliest poetry collections, Hos rådjur (1997) and Mörk materia (1999), and how it relates to notions of humanity, culture and civilisation. The concept of ?nature? is problematized in a short survey of how it has been used by and critizised in ecocritical literary theory, which is used as the main theoretical framework for this survey, with an emphasis on selected theoretical concepts by Donna Haraway. As a methodological starting point, ?nature? is tentatively defined as ?that which does not let itself be subsumed under the human, culture or civilisation?, and this definition is contrasted with how the concepts are handled in the texts.The investigation shows that the relationship of nature to the human is a fundamental theme that provides a structure for both poetry collections.

In the constitution of Sweden everyone has the right of common access in the nature. Toprotect these rights, as well as the nature, in areas close to shores the environmental law ofSweden (miljöbalken) protects areas within 100 meters from the waterline. Due to amendmentin this law, Swedish municipalities have to present countryside development areas close toshores. Within these areas, which are to be displayed in the municipality?s comprehensiveplan, it will be possible to get exemptions from the protection if the planned measure willbenefit the development of the region.

This thesis aims towards an understanding of information systems and subject representation in relation to academic disciplines. This is achieved by comparing how a discipline, History of science and ideas, represents itself compared with the subject representation of its dissertations in an information system, LIBRIS. The point of departure for this thesis is the domain analytic view of Hjorland which states that the quality in information seeking is enhanced if the subject representation considers the contexts in which documents are produced and used. The importance of concepts such as domain and discipline is discussed. The disciplines view of itself is established by the study of articles written by scholars in the discipline, by how the discipline presents itself on the homepages of five university institutions and by the examination of titles and keywords given to dissertations in the discipline.

Drawing on earlier research, and using observations as the method, this study presents a design of a nature playscape for children. Applying outdoor pedagogy to the fundamental structure of a specific location, the study proposes a design of a playscape, over a more obvious design, for instance one based around a quiz walk.The theoretical framework is Gibson?s theory of affordance, and the goal has been to create a "play flow". The study concludes that spatial rhetorics can be an important tool when teaching children about nature..

In the end of 1998 the company Holmen Skog AB was certified accordint to the FSC system with an area of 1 036 000 hectare. After that Holmen Skog AB has been working actively with the nature conservation in the forestry. In order to control the quality of the company?s nature conservation in final fellings they started a yearly inventory which is called BAKRUS (Judgement of ecological and culture care in relations to policies for a persevering silviculture). After 1999 the control was expended to include all actions in the forest.

Organizational culture is subject of a great debate nowadays and there is especially three schools which affairs its nature of reality; modernism, symbolism and postmodernism. This thesis is built upon a case study about the organization Idé & KunskapsCentrum, which experience various cultural issues. Observations made during visits in the organization environment forms the ground on which discussions about different perspectives are made regarding organizational culture.The thesis describes and investigates the subject of organizational culture and its relationship to human behavior in organizations. Furthermore, I discuss and analyze organizational culture from the three different perspectives, in order to present a critical view on the subject for the reader.The thesis is based upon a case study about the organization Idé & KunskapsCentrum. A qualitative research method has been conducted with data collected especially from an ethnographic study, but also via semi-structured interviews.

The purpose with this essay is to examine the role of landscape photography as a portrayer of nature. The study contains interviews with eight landscape photographers, to find out how they look at tendencies and changes in photography. The essay focuses on the discussion of authenticity and realism in landscape photography. Due to the requirement of nature as something natural and authentic, the landscape photography stands in a special position when it comes to matters of manipulation and influence. On the basis of certain analysis themes, the landscape photographers debate questions such as where landscape photography stands today, and how the future looks for the genre..