The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.

This essay examines the theme of blindness in the Gospel of Mark. The two main questions asked are: 1) ?What is Mark?s view on blindness?? and 2) ?How does the Gospel of Mark?s view on blindness inform the current discourse of disability studies and how can we interpret Mark?s view on blindness today?? By the methods of metaphor analysis and character analysis, four passages of the Gospel are studied (Mark 4:10-12; 8:14-21; 22-26; 10:46-52). The analysis concludes that blindness is depicted by the author of the Gospel as a disability which also consist of a lack of cognitive ability and a hopeless state that is in need of healing.  The depiction of blindness in Mark originates out of the authors use of blindness as a metaphor for lack of cognitive ability (Mk 4:12; 8:18) and the lack of characterization of the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22-23). This view on blindness is, in comparison to a modern view, difficult, as it marginalizes persons with blindness as inconsiderate and not fully human.

The aim of this thesis is to map important strategies and factors that a firm, in this case Gunnebo Lifting AB can use when establishing themselves at the Russian market. The Russian market is today considered to be an emerging market. Within this study several areas of theory connected to entering new markets have been touched upon. These areas are market analysis, relationships and networking, internationalization processes, distribution chains, export issues and finally cultural distances. The empirical data for this thesis were collected through qualitative interviews.The results that arose when analyzing the theories combined with the empirical data pointed towards five strategies and factors of importance.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka samband mellan upplevelse av tandvårdsrädsla och smärta hos patienter vid tandhygienistbehandling. Ytterligare ett syfte var att undersöka om det fanns samband mellan kön och ålder i relation till tandvårdsrädsla och smärta. Studien genomfördes med användning av enkäter på patienter som behandlades av tandhygieniststudenter på Högskolan i Kristianstad. I studien ingick 78 respondenter, varav 39 män och lika många kvinnor i åldrarna 21-81 år. Enkäten bestod av två delar.

Hammarby Sjöstad is a new district of southern Stockholm built with focus on reduced environmental impact by recirculation of materials and sustainability. The environmental goals aim to cut the water consumption by half and a separate storm water treatment. Thus, the wastewater will be more concentrated and will originate from the households only. The Sjöstad project includes the idea of a local treatment plant for the household wastewater. To evaluate this possibility, Sjöstadsverket, an experimental treatment plant was constructed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Health Locus of Control, Exercise habits, Food habits and Self-esteem (Personal self and Physical self) between two groups of student teachers at a university in the south of Sweden. Is health such as exercise, eating and self-esteem something that is controlled by internal or external factors? Student teachers that participated in Physical and Health programme and student teachers that participeted in other programme were investigeted. The participants (N = 160) answered the questionnaire. The Health Locus of Control scale and Tennessee Self-Concept Scale were used.

This essay describes and compares the extensive reindeer management to the more intensive, but grazing based, sheep management system in Sweden. Differences and similarities between the two production systems will be investigated by elucidating the economy, land use and possibilities to influence production and economy through breeding, feeding and product development. The reindeer management area covers the northern part of Sweden whilst the sheep management is dispersed over the country. Both reindeer and sheep are ruminants and have relatively high demands on the quality and digestibility of the feed however reindeers graze on mountain-and forest lands whilst sheep often graze inaccessible areas or cultivated grasslands. Selection intensity is generally lower in the reindeer management compared to the intensity in sheep breeding.

Organisationspsykologi kan ibland upplevas allt fo?r problemorienterad med stort fokus pa? just problem och konflikter i organisationer. Det finns dock en inriktning pa? de fo?rha?llanden och processer som bidrar till att ma?nniskor, grupper och organisationer kan frodas och fungera optimalt. Denna studie syftade da?rfo?r till att underso?ka eventuella samband mellan positiv feedback, self-efficacy, locus of control och socialt sto?d.

Predicting corporate failure is an increasingly important topic in the world of economics today. This paper, with the help of the credit ranking company Syna AB, aims to investigate a few different statistic strategies to do just that. This task is accomplished by using a data material of 250 000 Swedish companies divided into two subsamples. The first sample is used to develop the model and the second as a validation sample. The model developing sample holds 160 000 companies divided into five different subgroups based on size and age.

Syftet med studien är att göra en kartläggning över hur svenska skådespelares fysiska och psykiska hälsostatus ser ut hösten 2009. De områden som undersöks är depression, ångest, sömn, stress, arbetslöshet och hälsopåverkan, hörselproblem och tinnitus, samt alkohol- och droganvändning. En länk till en webbenkät med frågor från Hospital anxiety and depression scale, Perceived stress scale, Nationell undersökning om hörsel, yrsel och tinnitus samt Swedish longitudinal occupational survey of health 2006 skickades till medlemmar i Teaterförbundets skådespelaravdelning. 533 deltagare svarade på de inledande frågorna och 425 deltagare slutförde hela enkäten.Resultaten visar på förekomst av depression och ångest av klinisk betydelse, förekomst av sömnbesvär, samt förekomst av hög till mycket hög upplevd stress och prestationsbaserat självförtroende. Deltagarna upplever negativa konsekvenser av arbetslöshet.

Multi-branch companies are facing many challenges in order to become successful. Competitive advantages can be gained through a unified strong brand, standardised products and economies of scale. This normally calls for centralisation. On the contrary is decentralisation, which is said to improve work motivation and local market orientation, which are also competitive advantages. The focus of this thesis is to study how local branch managers want their companies to be structured in accordance with this dilemma.

In Swedish sheep industry it is desired to have lambs slaughtered evenly distributed over the year. Swedish sheep are generally seasonal breeders with lambs born in the spring and slaughtered in the autumn. Some of the breeds, e.g. Swedish Finewool and Roslag sheep breeds have shown ability to lamb out of season. For increased knowledge on the possibilities to breed for out-of-season lambing in Swedish sheep breeds, the aim of this master thesis is to study the variation in frequency of two alleles in the MTNR1A gene in the three breeds; Gotland, Swedish Finewool, and Roslag sheep.

In this essay, the phenomenon and the concept "meditation" are treated. Meditation is a mental training technique where one develops the ability to choose where to put attention and ability to focus. Techniques for meditation is used individually of people who wants to develop themselves as persons and in therapeutic aims of professional within the field of psychology in order to help people to find solutions of problems within themselves. The aim with this essay were to do a qualitative study in order to see how possible effects of meditation influences daily life of contributory practisian's. Issue has been as follows; which effects have one regularly conducting of meditation on people and their lives? Interviews with four experienced meditators were done in India and the material were analyzed afterwards with the aid of thematic analysis, furthermore in order to link the results with clinical research and established theories about meditation.

A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

This study, based on the socio-cultural theory of the book as a mediating tool, examines how four teachers say they work with the reader ABC-klubben. This is done with a focus on how they reason about choosing the level of readers for the pupils and about what compensation, if any, they make for pupils who read the simpler book and therefore miss the more difficult words and expressions. The result shows that all the teachers say that they take the pupils? motivation for and pleasure in reading as an important ground for the decision as to which reader a pupil should use, and that this decision is taken with a focus on the individual. When it comes to compensation for the pupils who read the simpler book, the teachers do not describe consistently focused work on this, but they describe a similar way of working whereby they nevertheless acquaint these pupils with the more difficult book and the harder words and expressions.