Nordic noir is a distinctive component of the current Nordic cultural export, which has become increasingly popular in recent years not only in Europe. One of the main characteristics of this genre is the description of tensions between the seemingly insignificant and peaceful social climate in the Nordic environment and the murders, racism, inequality and other malfunctioning mechanisms that occur beneath the surface. This creates an ideal spare for criticizing the welfare state. Denmark, as a representative of its Scandinavian model, is also one of the countries where nordic noir has spread very quickly. Therefore, this master thesis will be devoted to analyzing the criticism of the welfare state in the Danish series The Killing in order to demonstrate socio-critical tendencies in the aforementioned genre. It will further examine how they are approached and what specific aspects are subjected to criticism. The work aims to contribute to the current debate by presenting specific examples based on a detailed analysis of the selected case.

Previous research on the funerary practices of the Viking Age has found evidence to suggest that people were sometimes executed for the purpose of following others into death. There are several well-known examples of this practice from around Scandinavia, including graves from Birka, Bollstanäs, and Gerdrup, where men appear to have been executed using brutal methods. Written sources such as Ibn Fadlān's travelogue and Sigurdskvädet, however, often place an emphasis on the killing of women during funerary rites – a practice that is inconsistent with the archaeological evidence. Where women have been suggested to have been executed as part of a funerary ritual, their skeletons often show no evidence for violence. This study was therefore conceived in order to critically compare the archaeological and textual evidence with a view to establishing the potential reasons for this discrepancy. By applying a theoretical framework that focused on the funeral as a ‘mortuary drama,’ the study has identified different potential causes for the absence of skeletal injuries on female individuals. It is possible, for example, that while women were killed they were often subjected to other types of fatal violence that do not leave injuries on the bone. It is also possible that women who were executed were more often cremated, rather than buried. Finally, it is possible that both men and women could be killed as part of these rites, and that the identity and the gender of the victim was of less symbolic importance than the act itself. The study shows that although the graves are scattered over vast geographical areas, they appear to have some certain commonalities, nevertheless the graves are interpreted differently. Variations, when comparing graves and the historical sources, appear natural, as Viking culture as well as their graves carry great variations. This study has shown that the types of fatal violence described in historical sources differ from the archaeological evidence presented in modern excavations.

The study aimed to explore the determinant factors that influence consumers’ sustainable consumption, or more specifically consumers living in Scandinavia. The study seeked to understand what influences Scandinavian people to purchase a sustainable product based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) including the attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. To conduct a better approach, a case company was involved in the working process, with the help of which, the focus became more specific into fabric and clean care appliances such as dish machines, washing machines and dryers. To provide an exhaustive answer to the research questions, three hypotheses were conducted which were built based on the TPB model.  The study used a quantitative approach where an online survey was made. The survey was shared with people living in the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, where 291 answers were collected. To analyze all the answers, SPSS statistics was used where each country was individually analyzed.  The results showed that an individual’s attitude and perceived behavioral control have a significant influence on the behavioural intention to perform sustainable consumption in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark while the subjective norm does not affect the sustainable consumption in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Finland was the only country that had an accepted hypothesis on the subjective norm which means that finish people get influenced by the subjective norms.

My thesis deals with the change of retirement policy in the Nordic welfare state. It focus on the period between years 1990 - 2014, during which the Nordic countries Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark were forced to respond to demographic challenges, such as population aging, decrease of economically active population, the increase of old - age dependency ratio and other problems. The main aim of my thesis is to find out if it is possible to observe a markedly different response and acceptance of different changes in the period 1990 - 2014 in the context of pension policy in these countries, or whether the countries responded similarly. The second objective of my work is to undertake a comparison of pension policy within the Nordic countries. As an aspect of comparison, I chose the financial sustainability of pension systems (expected future pension expenditure as % of GDP), the adequacy of pensions (according to the replacement ratio) and the possibility of drawing pensions (ordinary, early) and delay drawing pensions. In my work, I use the method of secondary analysis (especially statistics issued by the OECD and the Eurostat, legal documents and publications). Furthermore, I use comparative method for comparing the situation in different countries according to selected criteria and method of...

This project focuses on the design of interfaces that promote sustainable purchases of laundry appliances (washing machines, and dryers) in Scandinavian countries through raising the consumer’s knowledge about the short and long-term value of sustainable products. The research part is accomplished in collaboration with IKEA and three other master students with business and design backgrounds. The project part started with interviewing house owners in Scandinavia who have  laundry appliances in their house to find out the factors affecting their decision while purchasing laundry appliances. The solution was developed by understanding house owners' laundry habits. The idea is done by applying UX design principles to bring the knowledge and information for the user while purchasing laundry appliances through an online platform.

The discovery of solidus coins on the islands of Öland and Gotland, propose a contactbetween Scandinavia and the Roman Empire during the Migration Period (AD 400-550), buthow did the Scandinavians get access to these coins? In this essay, I will study thestampidentity and coin embossing from 572 coins found on Öland and Gotland. The aim is tounderstand where the coins were minted and during which periods there was a big influx ofsolidus coins to Scandinavia. But also, to understand what European regions the people ofÖland and Gotland were in contact with. This essay will also map certain events that are vitalfor understanding why the solidus coins are found in Scandinavia.

Humans are less exposed to natural light during the day and less to darkness at night. Good daylighting provides visual comfort for performing tasks but also influences non-visual comfort. According to various studies, good daylight conditions can influence human physiology and behaviour, like sleep, alertness, mood and cognitive functions. Having good daylight conditions in our homes or student homes can be challenging, even more in Nordic countries. This research focuses on daylight in student dorms, located in Sweden. The influence of orientations and seasonality on daylight qualities is researched by using a survey with subjective evaluations and computer-simulated results. The survey and computer simulations show slight differences between the orientations for the existing situations in the student dorms. In summer and spring, daylight generally has more qualities than in winter and autumn, in some cases, glare can cause discomfort. Larger window dimensions result in more daylight entering future student homes. This improves the daylight conditions in winter and autumn, but east, south and west-facing rooms would benefit from shading to avoid potential glare. The amount of sky present in the outdoor view strongly influences the daylight qualities of a room.

Sex work has been subject to a variety of different conceptualisations throughout history. Within Scandinavia the debate has for long centred on topics such as trafficking, gender- equality and the representation of sex work as either work or exploitation. The thesis aims to examine how sex work is represented as a problem in Sweden and Denmark, as well as how this has manifested in policies. This is done through analysing the discourse within policies on sex work utilising Bacchi’s WPR approach. The thesis constitutes a comparative case study. The study is conducted with a focus on the representation of sex work within different feminist frameworks. In conclusion, the thesis finds that Sweden shares viewpoints with both the carceral and radical feminist framework. The Danish representation has been influenced by a significant number of diverging opinions, however the radical feminist line of thought is also apparent in the Danish case.

The purpose of this thesis is to address key questions concerning the status and roles of enslaved groups (thralls) in Viking-Age Scandinavia. The thesis focuses on the lives of thralls at two levels; first within the local context of the household and farm (described here as the ‘microenvironment’), and second within the wider ‘macroenvironment’ of Scandinavian society. In particular, the study seeks to uncover the different practical and economic roles that were fulfilled by thralls within these contexts, and in doing so to explore how slaveholding communities benefitted from the exploitation of these people. In order to address these issues, the thesis critically examines the archeological material associated with thralls and discusses the various issues associated with the interpretation of this evidence. Given the inherent difficulty of identifying thralls in the archaeological record, this study also utilizes a range of contemporaneous and later medieval textual sources, including the Icelandic sagas and the earliest surviving Scandinavian law codes, as a means of contextualizing the discussion of material evidence. In exploring the diverse range of archaeological evidence and textual sources available to us, the author concludes that thralls played a significant role among Scandinavian communities as a source of both domestic and economic labor. Through this, they also involuntarily helped Scandinavian communities to mount and sustain trading, raiding and settlement activity in Europe and beyond. In reaching this conclusion, the author draws upon a number of sources pointing to a significant need for (unfree?) labor, for example in tasks such as textile production. When combined with a high-level of access to slaves through raiding and trading activity, it seems logical that Viking-Age communities would have exploited thralls in this way. Given the regular appearance of thralls in both the early Scandinavian law codes and sagas, furthermore, it is likely that these people represented a prominent social group within both social and labor-related contexts.

Bakgrund: Ett stort antal kvinnor drabbas av bröstcancer varje år. Drabbade kvinnor upplever ofta att behandlingen gör dem sjuka och inte cancern i sig, med anledning av biverkningar som behandlingarna för med sig. Att drabbas av sjukdom innebär en förändring i många aspekter. Sjuksköterskans ansvar är att arbeta personcentrerat där patientberättelsen lägger grunden för hennes omvårdnadsbehov.  Syfte: Att belysa kvinnors upplevelser av att diagnostiseras och leva med bröstcancer i Skandinavien. Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturöversikt.  Resultat: Fyra teman framkom i resultatet, vilka var emotionellt kaos, förlust av identitet, relationers nya värde samt förändrat perspektiv. Emotionellt kaos utgjordes av chock, ångest och rädsla inför framtiden. Hos kvinnorna infann sig samtidigt en livslust. Moderskap, äktenskap och karriär försummas och kvinnans självbild förvrängs. Hela familjen påverkas då en kvinna får bröstcancer, vilket stärker eller stjälper nära relationer. Värdefulla detaljer i livet uppmärksammas och vardagen får en större mening.  Konklusion: Det framkom tydligt att livslidande och sjukdomslidande tog stor plats i kvinnans liv. Sjukvården bör bemöta kvinnan som något mer än en cancersjuk patient. Sjuksköterskans roll är att stötta kvinnan i hennes lidandeprocess och arbeta för att eliminera vårdlidandet. / Background: Every year a large number of women are diagnosed with breast cancer. The women often feel that the treatment is what makes them sick and not the cancer itself, due to the treatment's side effects. The nurse’s responsibility is to perform personcentered care in which the patient’s story lays the foundation for her nursing needs.  Aim: To describe women's experiences of being diagnosed and living with breast cancer in Scandinavia. Method: A qualitative literature review. Findings: Four themes emerged from the result, which were emotional chaos, loss of identity, the new values of relationships and changed perspective. Emotional chaos consisted of shock, anxiety and fear. A lust for life also appeared in the women. Motherhood, marriage, relationships and career are affected and the woman's self-image is distorted. A change in the woman's outlook on life takes place and everyday life takes on greater meaning.  Conclusion: It became clear that life suffering and suffering from illness took a large place in the woman's life. The role of the nurse is to support the woman in her process and work to prevent unnecessary suffering.