This thesis seeks to explore the points of dissonance and resonance around the understanding and deployment of the term 'religion' between Human Rights Watch, and the government of the People's Republic of China. In doing this, it is highlighted that a fundamental disjunction exists in the meaning of, and the boundaries of, the word 'religion' between these two groups. The space that this difference creates makes discussions on religion and religious freedom between these two groups extremely problematic, primarily because Human Rights Watch seeks to protect the right to religious freedom of groups and individuals that the Chinese government does not consider ‘religion’, but that Human Rights Watch demands they should. This thesis addresses the question of the role of social and cultural relativism in the defining, and the subsequent role in defending, of the term and contents of 'religion'.

Urban centers and smaller communities across Canada are witnessing an increase in youth gang activity. But, determining both the level and nature of youth gang involvement/activity is problematic, in part because of varied interpretations of what it means to be a gang. Many Canadians believe that a gang is a structured organization with crime as their main objective. However, youth gangs can range from associations involving a loosely organized collective of friends that come together to protect their neighborhood to that of the hardcore gangs who have political agendas and are structurally organized. It is much more difficult to determine the level and nature of youth gang activity because they are ever changing entities depending on factors such as race, socio-economic status, and community. Youth gangs become a burden to society financially, emotionally, and mentally. Costs are incurred due to vandalism and an increase in crime: while anguish and a heightened sense of fear/anxiety speak to the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects resulting from gang activities.<p> This study is a qualitative analysis that focuses on how agencies in Saskatoon define youth gang activities and behaviors. The agencies involved constitute community based organizations, permanent and part-time holding residences, justice and city officials. Grounded theory analysis was utilized to maintain the original interviewees own voices from interviews to the final product. The final analysis is divided into three sections that focus on: characteristics of Saskatoon youth gangs, implications of defining, and programming. By analyzing these themes we begin to see that defining youth gangs becomes a very political issue and that agencies who work with youth have difficulty in coming to terms in creating a common definition of youth gangs for Saskatoon.

Med detta arbete har jag försökt skapa förståelse för vad dyslexi innebär. För att få ett brett perspektiv på arbetet har jag utgått dels ifrån olika forskningsteorier, dels ifrån intervjuer med speciallärare och dyslektiker. Jag har utgått från följande frågeställningar: Hur definierar man dyslexi? Hur yttrar sig dyslexi i praktiken? Varför har en dyslektiker svårare att läsa och skriva än andra? Hur kan man hjälpa dyslektiska elever i skolan? Vilka läs- och skrivinlärningsmetoder kan man använda sig av? Vilka hjälpmedel finns för dyslektiker? Hur arbetar Förbundet mot läs- och skrivsvårigheter, FMLS? Hur ser den aktuella dyslexiforskningen ut? Jag har funnit att dyslexi är en medfödd defekt i hjärnan, men att man kan göra mycket i skolan för att underlätta för dessa elever. De kan t ex få hjälp genom bandspelare, datorer och muntliga prov. Genom att få diagnosen i ett tidigt stadium har dyslektikern större chans att få riktade insatser snabbare vilket kan ge eleven ett ökat självförtroende och lusten att lära. Dagens forskare har kommit en god bit på väg vad gäller dyslexins orsaker men innan dyslexigåtan är löst kvarstår en del frågetecken. Som privatperson har jag redan stött på detta handikapp och som lärare kommer jag komma i kontakt med det förr eller senare. Arbetet har blivit mitt verktyg att utveckla en beredskap inför framtiden

Mitt syfte med detta arbete är att reda ut begreppen ordblindhet, dyslexi och läs- och skrivsvårigheter. Jag har sedan valt att använda definition läs- och skrivsvårigheter. I arbetet har jag undersökt hur pass väl teori stämmer överens med praktik, med tyngdpunkt på dessa orsaker, symptom, diagnos och åtgärder. Det är idag ganska oklart om vilka faktorer som är bidragande orsaker till läs- och skrivsvårigheter. Forskarna är osäkra på om läs- och skrivsvårigheter kan vara ärftligt betingat. Dock vet man säkert att miljön är en starkt påverkande faktor. Mina studier, såväl i teorin som i praktiken visar däremot på att symptomen för läs- och skrivsvårigheter är tydliga. Dessutom är åtgärder i form av hjälp från speciallärare en viktig del för att individen med läs- och skrivsvårigheter skall få det stöd som han/hon behöver för att lyckas i sitt fortsatta skolarbete.

This thesis seeks to explore the points of dissonance and resonance around the understanding and deployment of the term 'religion' between Human Rights Watch, and the government of the People's Republic of China. In doing this, it is highlighted that a fundamental disjunction exists in the meaning of, and the boundaries of, the word 'religion' between these two groups. The space that this difference creates makes discussions on religion and religious freedom between these two groups extremely problematic, primarily because Human Rights Watch seeks to protect the right to religious freedom of groups and individuals that the Chinese government does not consider ‘religion’, but that Human Rights Watch demands they should. This thesis addresses the question of the role of social and cultural relativism in the defining, and the subsequent role in defending, of the term and contents of 'religion'.

In this thesis, the brand construct and its connections to risk, value and trust are explored in a Business-to-Business context. The different characteristics of B2B and B2C marketing is elaborated upon and coupled with brand management strategies viable in the respective markets. Contemporary academic theory on the explored constructs is discussed, and an attempt at conceptually visualizing their suggested linkages is presented. Based on the theoretical findings, a qualitative study is conducted by means of interviews with brand managers and marketing executives with the aim of establishing how Swedish industrial multinational companies employ brand strategies in their market communication, and to what extent the constructs explored are communicated as a part of their brand message. We find empirical evidence that risk, value and trust indeed are important in the brand communication of industrial companies. However, the relative importance of these constructs is found to be highly dependent on a multitude of both internal and external factors, such as the complexity of the offering, the degree of competition in the marketplace, and the amount of required customer interaction. Trust seems to be the construct most commonly incorporated in the branding activities, and value is not as actively stressed as conjectured. The corporate brand appears to be the most important in new tasks, where previous experiences of interaction with the seller is deemed more important in modified and straight re-buys. Similar to consumer marketing, the main merit of having a strong brand equity is the ability to charge price premiums, along with often making the short list of potential suppliers in the customers’ procurement processes. However, many industrial companies do not actively employ brand strategies and dedicated brand managers are not commonplace. Further, it cannot be decisively concluded that a strong brand focus is important for all industrial companies and in all markets. Again, external market characteristics, together with internal organizational conditions need to be taken into account.

Information demand is a part of comprehensive business logistics which encompass logistics of information. The demand for information has provided a unifying framework for different needs on enterprise modeling. Hence, the problems organizations faces relating to flow and distribution has lead to the development of various framework for analyzing information demand and this is guided by a set of rules, methods and even a unified representation. This thesis work defines a specification for enterprise Information Demand Context model using XPDL as the language of construct. The paper gives reasons why XPDL was preferred for such a representation and show how mapping is carried out from the constructs of notations to its associated XPDL specifications, so that when we are defining a representation we are as well defining its meta model. The resulting specification is presented in such a way that it should be able to give a flexible, logical and more defined structure.

Urban centers and smaller communities across Canada are witnessing an increase in youth gang activity. But, determining both the level and nature of youth gang involvement/activity is problematic, in part because of varied interpretations of what it means to be a gang. Many Canadians believe that a gang is a structured organization with crime as their main objective. However, youth gangs can range from associations involving a loosely organized collective of friends that come together to protect their neighborhood to that of the hardcore gangs who have political agendas and are structurally organized. It is much more difficult to determine the level and nature of youth gang activity because they are ever changing entities depending on factors such as race, socio-economic status, and community. Youth gangs become a burden to society financially, emotionally, and mentally. Costs are incurred due to vandalism and an increase in crime: while anguish and a heightened sense of fear/anxiety speak to the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects resulting from gang activities.<p> This study is a qualitative analysis that focuses on how agencies in Saskatoon define youth gang activities and behaviors. The agencies involved constitute community based organizations, permanent and part-time holding residences, justice and city officials. Grounded theory analysis was utilized to maintain the original interviewees own voices from interviews to the final product. The final analysis is divided into three sections that focus on: characteristics of Saskatoon youth gangs, implications of defining, and programming. By analyzing these themes we begin to see that defining youth gangs becomes a very political issue and that agencies who work with youth have difficulty in coming to terms in creating a common definition of youth gangs for Saskatoon.

The present investigation looks at management consulting engagements through the project management lens, and explores what practitioners do in the initial stages of their projects. In the understanding that the front-end of the project is a very critical and important stage, this text begins by examining the literature on management consulting and on the definitional phase of projects, and demonstrates that the situations encountered in both domains are quite similar. For this reason, this study explores the project management practices that Swedish management consultants employ in the initial phases of the consulting projects. Particularly, it focuses on the practices that reconcile possible gaps in perspectives and expectations that often exist between client and consultant when this relationship is being formed.  The study had an inductive character and is cross-sectional in terms of time-horizon, focusing on the previous experiences of management consultants. In collecting the data, a survey strategy was usedwith semi-structured interviews involving nine Swedish management consultants from eight different consultancies. The process of analysis implied the use of template analysis, which provided researchers with enough flexibility to code, categorize, and interpret necessary findings. The results show that consultants favor practices that revolve around communication and interaction with the client, including interviews, workshops, and meetings, among others. In addition, they stress the importance of the use of documentation in order to reach an agreement on what the project is about. Moreover, these practices were often clearly connected to the issues that they, as project managers, must resolve at the front-end of projects. Interestingly, the results indicate that these challenges, identified by the management consultants, mostly match the ones identified in the project management literature. There is indeed a connection between project management practices and management consulting, from which both fields can benefit.

Under digital convergence, the market structure has changed which cause the traditional market definition is no longer applicable. Many industries and firms have take action of cross-industry M&A and integration. In contrast, regulations and ¡§new¡¨ market definition has not appeared which cause antitrust authorities deal with the case of the M&A under digital convergence has no quantitative tools. Our study has found that the market structure under digital convergence almost is two-sided market and multi-sided market, so we use the modified Critical Loss Analysis which Evans and Noel (2008) proposed to be the market definition tool under digital convergence. Subsequently, we use the merger case of TFN media and Kbro to do empirical analysis. By the empirical results, we find out that the relevant market of cable TV has to expand. The IPTV and online play will be the competitive product that the market structure of cable TV will be changed radically. Under digital convergence, market definition may not precisely than traditional, but it still could provide antitrust authorities an effective quantitative evidence, and with the economic theory of qualitative analysis which could make policy analysis more integrity.