In this paper discourse analysis on the Ethiopian National Action Program (NAP) to combat desertification is made. The aim is to describe how the overall image/picture of desertification, its causes, and effects and of possible solutions are presented in the NAP. The result of this analysis shows that the main cause of desertification is human activities mainly due to the poorly developed socio-economic situation in the dryland areas. It is indicated that an excessive dependency of the rural population on the natural resources, particularly land, is the major cause of land degradation and this deterioration of land is said to have been caused by the rapid population growth, overgrazing, forest clearing as well as past government and institutional failures. In addition it is indicated that the effect of desertification usually involves ecological changes that sap land of its ability to sustain agriculture and human habitation, therefore the most serious threat to human welfare.

Lantbruksdjurens välfärd påverkas i stor utsträckning av människors sociala och ekonomiska förutsättningar. Brister i djurvälfärd skiljer sig således åt i olika länder beroende på bland annat djurhållningssystem, klimatförhållanden och utfodringsmöjligheter. Denna variation mellan länder medför behov av skiftande anpassningar och insatser för ökad djurvälfärd beroende på samhällets grundförutsättningar. Det finns tendenser till att industriländer försöker applicera sina forskningsresultat och kunskaper direkt på andra länder när de skall genomföra ett biståndsprojekt, något som sällan ger framgångsrika resultat om viktiga faktorer som kultur, tradition, miljö och religion ej tas med i beaktandet. I utvecklingsländer, där människor plågas av svält, fattigdom och arbetslöshet finns det ytterst begränsade ekonomiska tillgångar att investera djurvälfärdsfrågor. Detta ökar behovet av ett ?människofokuserat? djurvälfärdsarbete, där insatser för djurens välfärd samtidigt bidrar till ett ökat välbefinnande hos människor, antingen ekonomiskt eller hälsomässigt.

One way of signalling commands to the horse during riding is through applying tension on the reins to create bit pressure in the horse?s mouth (Terada et al., 2006; Clayton et al., 2011). The skilfulness of the rider in using the hands when applying bit pressure has consequences both for the horse?s performance and welfare (Manfredi et al., 2010). At the trot there are large vertical deviations of the horse?s body which the rider must adjust and adapt to (Terada et al., 2006) and an unsteady hand due to inability to follow the horse?s movement can be a source of discomfort and conflict behaviour in the horse (Heleski et al., 2009).

Summary The size of the Swedish dairy farms increases and also the demands for rational manage-ment of the herd without affecting the animal welfare enhance. One way to handle the manure in the cow shed alleys is to have automatic scrapers. In this system the scraper has to get rid of the manure somewhere. The most common way of doing that today is to let the scraper deliver the manure under some kind of gate or covering over the manure culvert. When the scraper goes under the gate or the covering there is a risk of squeezing animals and farmer.

Since the nineteen-fifties, the American political scientist Robert Dahl (born in 1915) has been one of the most prominent democracy theorists in the world. In the book Politics, Economics, and Welfare, he and his colleague Charles E. Lindblom in 1953 introduced the notion of polyarchy as a denomination for the incomplete democracies of the Western world. Linguistically speaking, this notion was formed in connection with the ones already existing in the philosopher Aristotle's (384-322 B.C.) comparative teachings on government. Later, it has become apparent that the notion of polyarchy has already been in use by other authors, such as Johannes Althusius (1614) and Sir Ernest Barker (1947).Robert Dahl has been active at Yale University (in New Haven, Connecticut, USA), and is regarded as one of the foremost representatives of the political-science discipline known as pluralism.

The subject for this paper is the Class Action against Skandia Association, a civil organization formed in 2003 with the aim of claiming compensation for some 1.2 million life insurance customers. The background to its formation was one of the largest financial scandals in Sweden in recent times, involving a number of questionable affairs within the insurance corporation Skandia and its subsidiaries, most notably the life insurance company Skandia Liv. The interests of both the stake- and stockholders of the company seem, in certain ways, to have been grossly misrepresented. The scandal, as well as the reaction it spawned, pose a number of questions. In this study, we focus on two: a possible, and in many ways apparent crisis in the representation of interests in Swedish society, and the role of civil society in upholding the balance between these interests.We argue that what is often held to be the ?greed? or ?immorality? of individuals in scandals such as Skandia is, to a great extent, a mere reflection of the ?rational? underpinnings of modern-day capitalism.We find that trust has been a key mechanism of control in the relationships between consumers and agents in pension and life insurance markets, and that ?the Swedish model? that distinguished post-WWII Swedish society was a model heavily based on trust towards existing models of bureaucratic governance.

Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted infection. The infection rates have increased in the last decade. During 2008 the trend rates declined in all counties and regions in Sweden. Chlamydia infections have a geographical spatial pattern differences. This is seen from the national surveillance data report from the Swedish Institute for infectious disease control (SMI).

The overall aim was to examine how the public interest to protect children from violence and sexual abuse at home, is realized by social workers. The study´s central focus was the risk assessments as Social services are obliged to do when they receive a report containing concern that children are being exposed to violence or sexual abuse at home. The study addresses the following questions:o How do social workers go about practically, and what support and knowledge is being used to determine whether the Social services need to intervene for the protection of a child?o What risk and protective factors are taken into account by social workers in the assessment process?o What contextual factors do social workers experience are affecting them in the assessment process?o Which support does the documentation system BBIC provide in the assessment process?The study material was collected through qualitative group interviews, with a modified vignette methodology as tools. The study included a total of twelve social workers, with varying numbers in each interview group.

Denna uppsats syftar till att dels beskriva, dels med utvald ekonomisk teori analysera regleringen av den svenska formen av kasinoverksamhet. Av särskilt intresse är att diskutera orsaken till den svenska lagstiftningen som reglerar spelverksamhet samt lagstiftningens relevans för en spelverksamhet som är utsatt för utländsk konkurrens. För att besvara syftet har följande frågeställningar formulerats: - Hur kan regleringen av den svenska spelverksamheten förklaras utifrån ekonomisk teori? - Vad är motiven till den svenska lagstiftningen som reglerar spelverksamhet? - Hur är kasinoverksamheten i USA och Storbritannien utformad? - Hur kan en framtida reglering av spelmarknaden utformas? Regleringen av spelmarknaden kan dels förklaras utifrån välfärdsteori, dels utifrån politisk ekonomi i form av särintresseteorin. Välfärdsteorin förklarar regleringen av spelmarknaden genom att den dels kan ses som en marknad som ger upphov till negativa externa effekter i form av spelmissbruk, dels som ett naturligt monopol då det finns stordriftsfördelar i information och kontrollen av verksamheten.

Primad information är lättare tillgängligt i minnet och kan således lättare bli igenkänt. Förutsättningar för priming är bland annat subliminal perception, mål, tillförlitlighet, icke vaksamt och icke vanemässigt. Studiens syfte är att få bredare förståelse gällande subliminal primings påverkan. Frågeställningen var om kunder i en affär kan manipuleras, primas, till att ta en specifik kulör på plastpåse vid kassan samt om det finns någon könsskillnad vid effekten av priming. Deltagarna var 490 kunder, varav 333 män.

The title of the study is: "Stories about helpful conversations - a narrative study of active processes in therapy and treatment." The purpose of this study was to examine clients' stories of what has been helpful to them in therapy / treatment. The study has been made in light of the ongoing discussion in society about the requirements for empirical studies within welfare areas. The choice to make a narrative study comes from the desire to have clients' own stories at the centre of what has been helpful in the therapeutic process. The author has interviewed and talked with four people (clients) who told us about their experiences of therapy / treatment. Narrative research methodology is based on people's life stories.

Tamgrisar (Sus scrofa domestica) har i stort sett kvar samma beteenden som de vildsvin (Sus scrofa) de stammar från. Inom den storskaliga produktionen är de lagstadgade kraven på sysselsättningsmöjligheter för grisarna väldigt låga eller helt obefintliga. Grisarna hålls i en torftig miljö där deras möjligheter till sysselsättning blir mycket begränsade. Detta påverkar välfärden negativt och kan leda till att de blir passiva eller utvecklar stressbetingade och skadliga beteenden. För att komma tillrätta med välfärds- och beteendeproblem kan olika typer av miljöberikning introduceras för grisarna.

People who live in northern part of the world spend much more time indoors than those who live in warmer countries. In addition that home should be safe, it should also protect one against heat, cold, sunlight and pollution. The indoor environment is affected by installations, material and how the building is formed. Those anomalies that are visible, felt or smelled can be noticed and be rectified. But it?s much more difficult if these abilities are missing.

This qualitative study is about motivation and experience of support among non-kinship fosterparents in a child welfare agency (NGO), in Paraguay. The empirical data where collectedthrough out six semi-structured qualitative interviews, with totally eight foster parentsparticipating. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze what motivates foster parentsand how they experience support from their formal and informal network. Further theobjective was to investigate how support (may) affect motivation and enable good foster care.Theoretical concepts such as solidarity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as well as socialsupport where used to analyze the data.The results show that there are many different motives and motivations (intrinsic andextrinsic) that correlate in the decision to become and continue to be a foster parent. Amongthem social involvement, the wish to make a difference in a child?s life, have something tooffer as a family and personal satisfaction seems to be the most frequent reasons.

The main purpose of this study is to inquire whether music can function as a supportive and compensating tool for children from various kinds of social exposure. Eurhythmics is the musical method focused on, since it consciously works out of a socializing perspective. The study involves a scheme with poor children in Argentin (autumn 2005) and is based upon two interviews with women working professionally with both the social and the musical aspect of the current question. Notes from the above mentioned project are added to the interviews. The possible conclusion from the end results is that the individual as well as the dynamics of the group (as a whole) draw positive benefits from not only the music itself but also the structure and the elements of it.