In a time where many Asian metropolises experience an expansive development new urbanconditions are created and the already existing disappears or being replaced. Asian cities develop ata pace that is unprecedented in our history and which, through a western perspective can seemharsh. By focusing on an urban complex in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern province ofSichuan China, the study asks; is it possible to see this rapid urbanization from another perspective?The study examines the local and global dimensions of Raffels City, and how concepts such asnostalgia and authenticity, related to the city, can be understood in an urbanization that is so markedby massive demolitions. The study shows that these concepts can be expressed in several ways, andthat an awareness of them does not necessarily control the view of the city..

Media has an influence on millions of people around the world, this influence can be positive as well as negative as a consequence of how phenomena and a certain event are interpreted. Mass media tend to magnify and dramatize events in form of attractive headlines in order to get as many readers as possible. One of the countries that the media spotlight focused on in recent years is Greece. However these attractive headlines, have not contributed anything positive for the country and one can say that it has done more damage than good. In the media the Greeks have been stereotyped, radicalized and labeled as "lazy" due to the representation of media.

In this essay the author has chosen to analyze the similarities and differences between some of the northern Europe?s late Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures. The research is of a processual standpoint and the information is mainly gathered from secondary sources as well as ethnological studies. The material collected has been analyzed in both a processual and a post-processual manner to most accurately study the foundations of the three primary theories describing the Pitted Ware Culture?s origin.

This essay studies the funnel-beaker ceramic in connection with the megalith graves in South Scandinavia. In my work I have described the nature of ceramics and looked on the crockery types and ornamentation and then discussed the use of the material in a ritual perspective. In the first part I have focused on the critical aspects you have to think about when you do a study like this one. In the second part of this essay I have done a case study, with the ceramic material, in three passages graves in the area of Falbygden, Western Sweden and studied the ceramic material and the nature of it in South Scandinavia as well. Then in the third I discussed the potential use, there is two, of the ceramic material in general of South Scandinavia and looked at it in a ritual perspective..

Lumilos is a work investigating the possibilities to use light and color in an interactive design context. I have explored different light sources and compared them to each other and given a short description of the history of light and how it has been developed during the industrialization in the western world. I have also investigated what is currently done in the field and summarized that with examples in the categories passive-, colored-, material- and interactive light. The conclusion is that working with interactive color and light is a hard task. There are many different angles to take into account such as personal likings and earlier experiences that is uncontrollable by the designer. Yet there are many possibilities and light is a material that is moldable in many forms. I have put the knowledge about light and color into practice and developed an interactive light wall that is visualizing energy consumption with the use of different colors of light and animations.

This is a critical discourse analysis of the conformation of the conflict in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, as constructed by Ekot, a news-show on Radio Sweden. The ambition of this bachelor thesis is to examine the production of a Congolese conflict for a Swedish audience and to find out how the construction differences with and without a reporter in the field. To obtain this purpose the narrative is studied as well as the use of voices that define the conflict. The construction of proximity between Swedish audience and the Congolese event and the meaning of sound to stabilize the formation of discourse within foreign news is examined as well. To conform and explain foreign news it must be put in relation to a starting point.

Forensiska tekniker såsom fingeravtryckstolkning har under senare år genomgått stora förändringar vad gäller exempelvis tekniska hjälpmedel, dock är människans roll i tolkningen fortfarande central i processen. Denna studie syftar till att öka kunskaperna om individernas kognitiva processer i tolkning av fingeravtryck genom ett experiment där fingeravtrycksforensiker, forensiker från andra fält än fingeravtryck samt noviser fick avgöra huruvida ett antal fingeravtryck härrörde från samma finger eller ej.  De kognitiva processerna studerades utifrån att testpersonerna fick rapportera sin tankar verbalt i form av att ?tänka-högt?. Resultaten transkriberades och analyserades sedan med mixade metoder (mixed methods), det vill säga med både kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod. Resultatet visar att fingeravtrycksforensiker signifikant bättre kan lösa denna typ av problem jämfört med övriga forensiker och noviser, men att det fortfarande finns kognitiva processer hos fingeravtrycksforesnikerna som medför risker i form av bias i förfarandeprocessen..

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the retrieval effectiveness on the European Unions official website EUROPA, depending on which language is used to formulate the search question. Our main concern were if you get access to the same information depending on which language is used to search information The European Union has so far eleven official languages, and with the forthcoming expansion with negotiations with thirteen new countries to affiliate to the union by May 1:st 2004, the official languages will be even more. We have made a comparison between Swedish and English, using 29 different topics from which we formulated 2x29 queries. The topics used were found at the Swedish Governments FAQ about the European Union, EUsvar. We wanted the topics to be as authentic as possible to avoid bias.

Vid användning av metoden contingent valuation erhålls ofta olika resultat beroende på sättet respondenterna frågas på. Tidigare studier har visat att binära frågor leder till en högre estimering av betalningsviljan än öppna frågor, samt att skillnaden mellan dem är lägre vid användning av privata varor än vid kollektiva varor. Uppsatsens undersökning är ett steg för att förbättra förståelsen inom detta område. Syftet är att undersöka om de estimerade betalningsviljorna, härledda från uppsatsens experiment, inte skiljer sig signifikant åt då man använder sig av öppna och binära frågor vid utvalda privata varor. Resultat av t-test, där de binära svaren är justerade från anomalier, visar att de estimerade betalningsviljorna inte skiljer sig signifikant åt för sju av uppsatsens varor.

The purpose of this study is to present a critical analysis of how certain themes of the Norse pagan religion are portrayed in ten selected textbooks used for Religious Science education in grades one through nine. The themes included in the analysis are; the description of the transition from the Norse Pagan religion to Christianity; Adam of Bremen?s portrayal of human sacrifice, and lastly Ibn Fadhlan?s characterization of widow burning. By using a critical knowledge text analysis, and applying a theoretical starting point that pedagogical material analyses and interprets events from a specific perspective; in this case from a Christian perspective, I have from the study concluded that the chapters covering the Norse pagan religion in these textbooks have a distinguished Christian bias seen as the norm. The themes analysed in this study all describe different phenomena in a similar way and make use of the same sources, even though these are often questioned.

This report presents suggestions and recommendations on how to convert an old industrial building, built in 1958, to an office hotel. One of the main criteria was that the floor plan should be flexible. The building is situated at Jonsereds Fabriker and the study was conducted for Hantverkslokaler i Göteborg AB, the estate owner.The survey is initiated with study visits at various office hotels, together with studies of literature regarding office planning. One conclusion from the study visits is that meeting-places, where the different companies can meet and exchange ideas and services, are important. Another one, and probably the most important parameter when planning offices is that they should have windows.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att studera om det finns en målgradient vid investeringsbedömning som medför en preferens för alternativ med kort återbetalningstid och snabba belöningar. Vi valde att genomföra denna studie med hjälp av en kvantitativ ansats, då vi genomförde ett experiment med studenter vid Blekinge Tekniska Högskola. Detta motiverar vi med att utifrån vårt syfte och vår teoretiska referensram, ger det oss störst möjlighet att generera ett intressant och relevant resultat. Vårt resultat visar tydligt att beslutsfattare föredrar att använda återbetalningsregeln före nettonuvärdesmetoden i en beslutssituation, och därmed ett fokus på tidsaspekten och när en investering är återbetald. 81 % av våra respondenter valde tidsalternativet i minst ett av de två casen.

The study's aim was to increase knowledge about the resistance of the Muslim religious expressions in the public sphere and its emergence on the basis of the case around the opposition to call for prayer. The study was conducted through the use of the qualitative research approach through interviews with informants who have a pronounced aversion regarding the existence of the public call to prayer in Sweden. The study's questions have been answered by an analysis of the empirical material by using different theoretical points that illustrate how Western standards are valued higher than the other, in the various standard systems. The view of the Muslim religious practices depicted by informants through an interpretative framework that is characterized by Islamophobic arguments that are considered to be incompatible with Western culture and the principles of the secular state striving. Such discourses can create an uneven distribution of power between Muslims and non-Muslims on the basis of the West's representations of Orientalism explained based in ethnocentric knowledge.

This essay examines Finnish artist Iiu Susiraja?s self-portraits in relation to Western traditions and tropes of the genre from the 20th century until today. I use an iconological/iconographic model to describe and to further interpret the images. The purpose is to find out which norms and conventions, within the art sphere and society as a whole, that Susiraja?s images reproduce or revolt against.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the most important factors that affect Swedish perennial growers when designing their assortment. The study describes how herbaceous perennials are produced in Sweden today and try to give an answer to the question how growing method and choice of assortment are affecting the possibilities of Swedish producers to compete on the market. Seven perennial growers in the southern and western parts of Sweden have been interviewed about their production methods and on what basis they design the assortment of perennials. During the interviews five factors seem to be the most important when the growers choose which species to grow ? profitability, the characteristics of the species, the sales channel/customer, the growing environment/growing facility and the grower?s interest and knowledge. It is often a combination of these five factors deciding if a cultivar will be grown or not. .