The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to illuminate and analyze the working conditions of visual artists in the Swedish region of Värmland. As a profession which is known to have many problems concerning income and the fact that most artist are unable to get by on their art sales alone it becomes interesting to look closer on cultural policy?s affecting the artists, where the problems lie and what possible help they can get.I have used previous research and different sources to map out the working conditions in Sweden and Värmland alike and also interviewed five different visual artists in Värmland to get a general view of the working conditions in the country as a whole and their perception of the situation and special circumstances in Värmland. I have also used discourse analysis to compare the source material with the answers of my respondents to see which discourses that exists, that have hegemony, and to see how this subject is talked about.The results of this study showed how political decisions may force artists to become self-employed entrepreneurs even though many artists do not self-identify as such or even have any interest in profitable gain. The study also shows among other things that most artists have another occupation on the side but that there are some aids to help the artists with income.

The crisis on Wall Street. This essay is a comparative study of how two business newspapers report on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September 2008. Seven articles from the Swedish European financial newspaper Affärsvärlden (Business World) and five articles from the Chinese-Asian news agency XINHUA FINANCE are examined. The aim is to analyze, understand and evaluate from a rhetorical perspective. My thesis is that rhetors storytelling can tell us more about how we cope with crisis in the global economic discourse. The texts can portray man as a narrative creature when identification as a rational actor is not enough. The analytical methods used are linguistic analysis with an emphasis on metaphor analysis, narrative analysis based on pentad - Critical dramatism, and discourse analysis with doxological outlook. The results show that both newspapers seek to defend the global economic discourse, but they do so in different ways. Affärsvärlden advocates calmness and conveys a cautious attitude. The heart of the crisis, as well as its solution, is on Wall Street. XINHUA advocates control and expresses confidence in authorities and the system. Asia is presented as Wall Street's savior..

Allt större och större andel företag väljer att presentera och förmedla varor och tjänster via e-handel. En viktig aspekt vid e-handel är att kunden känner förtroende för e-handelsapplikationen och företaget. Denna rapport redogör för vilken inverkan multimediala inslag har för förtroendet av en e-handelsapplikation, vid initialt användande. En undersökning har genomförts med hjälp av en kooperativ utvärdering av fyra e-handelsapplikationer vilka innehåller olika typer av multimediala inslag har.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att multimediala inslag inverkar positivt på förtroendet för e-handelsapplikationer. Däremot finns indikationer på att för hög grad av multimedialt inslag inverkar negativt på förtroendet för e-handelsapplikationer..

A rhetorical analysis of the educational interactive film ?Riskprofilen?, produced by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Swedish: Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap). This essay uses the theories and methods of Procedural Rhetoric, as described by Professor Ian Bogost, and Visual Rhetoric, as described by Professor Brigitte Mral to analyse the interactive and visual component parts of the artefact, and compares them to the intended purposes of the artefact as stated by documents pertaining to its creation, found to be those of educating the public; marketing the agency; and driving traffic to its webpage. The artefact is through analysis found to fulfil the purposes of marketing the Agency and of likely increasing traffic to the website upon which it is hosted. Regarding the primary, educational purpose this analysis finds that the artefact does not teach a user the accident-avoidance strategies it claims to do, but is dependent upon further materials..

AbstractObjectivePatients with Parkinson?s disease often have symptoms of dysphagia. These swallowingproblems have consequences for quality of life as well for the physical wellbeing of thepatients. AimThe aim of this study was to describe and correlate Swallowing Quality of Life (SWAL-QOL)scores, self-assessment of swallowing function using a visual analogue scale and the resultsfrom a fiber endoscopic evaluation of swallowing function in patients who had been selectedfor Deep Brain Stimulation in caudal zona incerta. A secondary aim was to correlate diseaseduration with results from SWAL-QOL and the fiber endoscopic evaluation of swallowingfunction.MethodTen male Parkinson?s patients (age 45-69 yrs, median 61.5 yrs) who were selected for DeepBrain Stimulation completing the Swallowing Quality of life form, as well as rating theirswallowing function using a visual analogue scale and undergoing a fiber endoscopicevaluation of their swallowing function.    ResultsThe median total SWAL-QOL score was 94% while the mean was 91%.

Le Français, what is that? What is actually a language?Questions like these are not easily answered and whilelinguists are continuing their search for the essence ofour communicative systems we are all free to make ourown interpretations.In various media, like schoolbooks and otherlanguage-teaching material, for instance, you mayfi nd visual interpretations of what French is, as alanguage?. Very often it is the common picture of whatis considered typically French that is shown. There areseveral problems to be found in limiting oneself to thesekinds of visualizations. One of these is that the Frenchlanguage is no longer strictly French.

In this paper Mona Hatoums installation Corps étranger is discussed via a post structuralized method based on associative and semiotic comparisons with vanitas, a post-modern self-portrait, and as a representative for modern visual art. The analyze touches upon pornography, science fiction and the quest for scientific conquest in outer and inner space. Theoretical references are Foucault, Freud, Lacan, Barthes, Dolar, Said and Virilio. Hatoum makes the observer a voyageur with the aid of the latest medical technology, endoscope, which gives her the opportunity to make an introvert self-portrait when she films her own throat and rectum. But at the same time she makes the portrait of us all.

This project has created a web-application for the service technicians at the paper plant Gruvön. The project was outsourced to the IT-company Sogeti.The application visualizes information about reparation-work of the equipment at the paper plant. The displayed information is work-orders, the status of the work-orders and errors. It is also possible to see the costs and hours spent on reparation-work.. The work-orders and related information is stored in a relational database.The application is created mainly for web-browsers in mobile-phones and tablets.

The primary intention of this paper was to visually compare film trailers without considering semantic information, through use of a self-developed Matlab program, resembling that of human perception. Circa 150 people participated in an online survey where they were shown two film trailers and asked to rate their visual similarities. The result from the program was weighted against the survey results in such a way that the weights corresponded to a 75% accuracy between the program?s and the participant?s (for participants with prior experience in the field of photography and/or film) comparisons.How accurate can we compare still images from film trailers, and find similar trailers for the human viewer, by analyzing saturation, color tone, contrast and lightness with a self-developed Matlab program..

Denna rapport beskriver ett examensarbete inom Programmet för Användarinriktad Systemutveckling vid Linköpings universitet, Campus Norrköping. Resultatet är en databasapplikation som är utvecklad specifikt för C.N.S. Systems AB i Linköping. I uppgiften ingår analys, utformning, realisering, implementering, dokumentation samt i viss mån även förvaltning och drift. Utvecklingsarbetet har skett i nära samarbete med företaget som har tillhandhållit arbetsplatser och datorutrustning.

This Master?s Thesis work was performed at the Studio Engineer department at Volvo CarsDesign Centre in Gothenburg, Sweden. The assignment has been to create a new idea of an airvent where the news value mainly was focused at functionality but also with great attention onvisual appearance.The work has been totally independent and not been aimed to any specific car model. Theindependency initially made that the visual appearance primary wasn?t limited in any way dueto surrounding components.

This report is a part of a diploma work, conducted as a part of a Master of Science degree. The diploma work consists of a preliminary study, two case studies, a user study, a paper and this report. It was created at the Linköping University for the department of Science and Technology, in cooperation with Unilever Research in the UK, and partly with the EC founded project, Smartdoc IST-2000-28137. Hand-held, mobile devices like Personal Digital Assistances (PDAs) are becoming increasingly popular in today?s wireless world.

This thesis presents the work of developing and testing a programming tool specially designed for children. The purpose of this tool is to make children capable of creating visual simulations and games that consist of actors interacting in a virtual world. The name of the programming tool is Behavior Cards, which comes from the fact that actors are programmed by giving them cards representing different kinds of behaviors. Behaviors are to some extent pre-programmed and can include general events specifying how the actors should act in different situations, in contrast to specifying every possible situation that can occur. The idea is that Behavior Cards should be easier to use than a more traditional text based programming tool, but it should also be expressive within the domain of visual games.

The advantage and the possibility of keeping track of a number of vehicles to make work practice more effective and smooth is today a favorable choice for Visual Units Logistics customers. We?ve been evaluating the software and trying to take it one step further and letting not only the individual user, but maybe, the company as a whole benefit from its advantages. This has been done by using methods like letting ourselves get to know the software, user case studies, workplace studies, interviews and future workshops. This resulted in a prototype introducing a new function designed with all collected data in mind trying to make the software, Visual Units Logistics, even more effective for the every day work practice of the user.

Purpose of this essay is to conduct a style analysis of Swedish silent film posters with visual storytelling and cultural memory as a theoretical basis. Concepts such as design, color and technique are studied to highlight the historical context of Swedish silent film posters..