This exploratory study initially attempts to generate basic understanding regarding how do Chinese tourists evaluate the importance of Scandinavian gastronomies when holidaying the countries. And it further judge the states could whether implement gastronomical development strategy. Additionally, the study generally explores Chinese tourists’ food behavior, motivation and preference in a culturally different environment when holidaying in Scandinavian countries. The study also provides a detailed investigation regarding Chinese tourists’ food preference, behavior and motivation based upon the general food habits. The study proposes the in-depth research that describes the disparities of Chinese tourists’ dining attitude on Scandinavian gastronomies from varying social groups, such as age and gender. A structured questionnaire adopted in the study as the research tool to collect quantitative data from sampled respondents. This study addressed a number of gaps in current knowledge. Academically, it filled the gap about the relationship between the gastronomy and the destination in Scandinavian states. And this study gains a better understanding about Chinese tourists food attitude towards exotic gastronomies in particular Scandinavian’s. The difference of Chinese tourists’ gastronomies, food preference, motivations and tourists’ food behavior on food while having a trip in Scandinavian countries is specifically indicated in the study. Regarding the business, a key contribution of this study is that it also provides the understanding about Chinese tourists in culinary aspect which can help with making a feasible tourism development plan.

<p>Mountain centered glaciers have played a major role throughout the last three million years in the Scandinavian mountains. The climatic extremes, like the present warm interglacial or cold glacial maxima, are very short-lived compared to the periods of intermediate climate conditions, characterized by the persistence of mountain based glaciers and ice fields of regional size. These have persisted in the Scandinavian mountains for about 65% of the Quaternary. Mountain based glaciers thus had a profound impact on large-scale geomorphology, which is manifested in large-scale glacial landforms such as fjords, glacial lakes and U-shaped valleys in and close to the mountain range.</p><p>Through a mapping of glacial landforms in the northern Scandinavian mountain range, in particular a striking set of lateral moraines, this thesis offers new insights into Weichselian stages predating the last glacial maximum. The aerial photograph mapping and field evidence yield evidence that these lateral moraines were overridden by glacier ice subsequent to their formation. The lateral moraines were dated using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide techniques. Although the terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide signature of the moraines is inconclusive, an early Weichselian age is tentatively suggested through correlations with other landforms and stratigraphical archives in the region. The abundance and coherent spatial pattern of the lateral moraines also allow a spatial reconstruction of this ice field. The ice field was controlled by topography and had nunataks protruding also where it was thickest close to the elevation axis of the Scandinavian mountain range. Outlet glaciers discharged into the Norwegian fjords and major valleys in Sweden.</p><p>The process by which mountain based glaciers grow into an ice sheet is a matter of debate. In this thesis, a feedback mechanism between debris on the ice surface and ice sheet growth is presented. In essence, the growth of glaciers and ice sheets may be accelerated by an abundance of debris in their ablation areas. This may occur when the debris cover on the glacier surface inhibits ablation, effectively increasing the glaciers mass balance. It is thus possible that a dirty ablation area may cause the glacier to advance further than a clean glacier under similar conditions. An ice free period of significant length allows soil production through weathering, frost shattering, and slope processes. As glaciers advance through this assemblage of sediments, significant amounts of debris end up on the surface due to both mass wastage and subglacial entrainment. Evidence that this chain of events may occur, is given by large expanses of hummocky moraine (local name Veiki moraine) in the northern Swedish lowlands. Because the Veiki moraine has been correlated with the first Weichselian advance following the Eemian, it implies a heavily debris charged ice sheet emanating from the mountain range and terminating in a stagnant fashion in the lowlands.</p>

Fisk är ett hälsosamt livsmedel och allt eftersom världsbefolkningen har växt och hälsotrenden blossat upp, har trycket på fiskerinäringen ökat. Bakgrundens fakta tog upp olika konsekvenser som fiskodling kan medföra och hur stor kunskap konsumenten har om detta och deras makt att påverka industrin. Syftet med studien var att belysa brister i fiskodling kopplat till konsumenters kunskap, samt hur de etiska frågorna påverkar konsumentens val. I metod och materialstycket lades det fram att studien var en litteraturstudie som baserades på vetenskapliga artiklar från olika databaser som gick att tillgå vid Örebro universitet. Resultatet av undersökningen gav inblickar i vad konsumenter visste om odlad fisk, vad de tyckte om produkten och hur eller om de utövade sin makt. Resultatet visar även hur hanteringen av fisk går till på fiskodlingar runt om i Europa. I diskussionsavsnittet i studien lades bakgrundsfakta ihop med fakta ur resultatavsnittet. I diskussionen framkom information om att konsumenters uppfattning och kännedom om odlad fisk inte var tillräcklig, trots de märkningar och informationskällor som presenteras i bakgrunden.I diskussionsavsnittet diskuteras även processen som ledde fram till den här studien och vad som fungerat respektive inte fungerat. / B-uppsatser

The Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, administered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, surveyed fifteen-year-olds for the first time in 2000. PISA focuses on mathematics, science, and reading literacy, and intends to undertake a new study every three years. The administration in 2003 added a section that measured problem-solving skills. The results from all three surveys thus far have placed Finland as the highest achieving country in PISA. Finland’s top performances in PISA astonished the educational world. More so than previous cross-national surveys such as TIMSS and PIRLS, PISA has drawn worldwide educational interest towards Finland and its educational system. PISA, unlike TIMSS, does not measure mastery of curriculum, but rather outcomes of education. PISA focuses on real-life applications of knowledge. Triggering global curiosity, the PISA has placed Finland on the itinerary of those wishing to discover the influences behind educational success. This research focuses upon Finland’s historical, cultural, and social context as a part of the Nordic countries and also its immense success in PISA. This project uncovers some of the factors contributing to Finland’s success in education, as indicated by the results in PISA. Finland’s history as a part of both Sweden and Russia has intertwined education with the movement for independence. The struggles after independence, including war and recession, have also reinforced the importance of education within Finnish society. The important status of teachers in Finland, in addition to their high quality, has further enhanced the excellence of the Finnish education system. PISA findings, however, have indicated that the Swedish-speaking Finns score lower than the Finnish-speaking Finns, a phenomenon explored within the research. This project investigates the reasons behind this counterintuitive result. The project incorporates perspectives through interviews with teachers and head teachers from the six sample schools, both Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking, Finnish education ministers, PISA creators from the OECD, and Finnish educational researchers and professors responsible for executing PISA in Finland. Their insight, from many different points of view, illuminated different perspectives on PISA and education in Finland.

My research explores the interrelationship between Norwegian folk music and Norwegian jazz from 1945 to 1995 (with updates to 2002) and assesses the extent to which the results can now be considered as constituting an indigenous art form. A short historical overview of Norwegian geography and history contextualises the development of Norwegian folk music and, in particular, its musical characteristics. It is argued that the geographical remoteness of many Norwegian communities isolated the local culture from the rest of the land's population, a situation which continued until collectors such as Lindeman and Sandvik began their tours of the landlying districts from about 1830 and 1900 respectively, collecting material and comparing it with what was discovered elsewhere. The end of World War II heralded the start of an important phase of development in Swedish jazz, which began to cultivate a Scandinavian style of performance and a Scandinavian repertoire. In Norway, some years later, jazz musicians were influenced by indigenous folk music and the principal folk music types that provided inspiration are scrutinised. I then concentrate on defining a Scandinavian jazz style and a recognisable Norwegian variant. The importance of the Lydian mode in Norwegian music is discussed, and the theories of Geirr Tveitt and George Russell receive critical evaluation in relation to Norwegian jazz. Jan Garbarek's composition Molde Canticle is analysed, as is one of its successors, the album Uncharted Land. The contributions of ECM and Manfred Eicher are evaluated, and I conclude with a survey of the contributions of other central figures in the combined field of Norwegian folk music and jazz.

This dissertation aims to explore the extent to which what has been termed „the civilising mission‟ has been a central rationale behind Norwegian cultural policy. In order to contextualise the research the German term Bildung, which refers to human growth processes, is used as a conceptual framework. Bildung can be achieved in two different, albeit related, ways: firstly, through an object approach, which takes great works of arts as its point of departure and where personal growth can be achieved through exposure to these and which endorses clear cultural hierarchies, and secondly, through a subject approach, which emphasises each individual‟s own preferences and desires and where a much greater range of cultural activities can facilitate personal growth. In addition to an historical analysis of the ideas that have informed Norwegian cultural policies dating back to 1814, this project draws upon „green papers‟ published by the Norwegian government through its Ministry of Culture. This is supplemented by a more detailed analysis of a key cultural policy initiative of the 2000s: den kulturelle skolesekken (DKS)1, which is a major programme initiated to enable children in primary school to be exposed to art-works produced by professional artists. The project concludes that although a subject and an object approach to Bildung have co-existed throughout the period charted here there has since the 90s been an increased focus on the object oriented approach. This appears evident both in the general cultural policy discourse but articularly through the disciplining aspect of DKS and its strong focus on, what is being referred to as, the „professional arts‟ as a vehicle for Bildung.

Every summer solo-hikers roam the wilderness in northern Scandinavia; across mountains and rivers; they are in awe of the nature. This thesis explores the question: What do they seek out there? It uncovers their aspirations and experiences with a phenomenological research approach. Sixteen solo-hikers were interviewed in-situ (northern Scandinavia, June to August 2014) to gain immediate insights into the phenomenon. The analysis derived four major experiential themes from their narratives: the solo, the nature, the physical and the inner experience. Accordingly, the solo-hikers seek an individual mixture of experiences often linked to their personal life-paths. The study suggests that the solo-hike is both a journey of distance and closeness. The individuals seek (a perceived, not spatial) distance to common life-spaces and make sense of wilderness as a place that is away. However, they speak about the solo-hike as an experience of closeness to their inner selves. The thesis links to key concepts in human geography (such as place, identity) and central discussions in tourism studies (e.g. solo-travel, travel motivations). Ultimately, it also offers a thorough theoretical discussion of adopting phenomenology in human geography.

Studies of vegetation history bring a new incentive to our understanding of plant survival and migration in arctic environments. For decades, environmental research was based on palynological data and these studies created a notion that tree species such as larch (Larix sibirica) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) did not grow in northern Scandinavia at the end of Weichselian glaciation. However, findings of macro- and megafossils of these trees dating back to glacial times has been reported in the Swedish mountain range, questioning this view of a late arrival of these trees in Scandinavia. The apparent contrasting views on the composition of the first plants arriving to Scandinavia create uncertainties about the bioclimatic conditions prevailing at the end of the Weichselian glaciation. To improve our understanding about the first vegetation arriving to Scandinavia I probed the macrofossil composition of two novel sedimentary records from northern Sweden. Twelve sediment cores from material underlying Holocene peat deposits were used as archives of early Holocene plants. In these records, I found: I) larch needles dating back to 4.6 and 4.1 calibrated thousand years (cal. kyr) BP; II) pine macrofossils dating back to 9.5 and 8.7 cal. kyr BP; III) fossils from dwarf shrubs (willow and heather) dating back to 9.9 cal. kyr BP; and IV) a birch fossil dating back to 9.5 cal. kyr BP. Also found in the same depth was fragment of a spruce cone. Based on my findings, I concluded that the landscape behind the retreating Weichselian ice-sheet was surpassingly colonised by pine and larch trees, a forest that has no contemporary analogue in Scandinavia. It seems as if this early forest also contained spruce, which is enigmatic as the main spruce invasion is expected to occur across the region during the next millennia. Finally, there is an instigation for future discussion on how our present knowledge of plant behaviour in changing conditions can help minimise the impacts of ever-expanding climate change.

The Anglo-American interpretation of the Second World War has continuously overlooked the significance of the Scandinavian region to the outcome of the war. This thesis seeks to address some of the more glaring errors of omission that have dampened the Anglo-American understanding of the war. Attention will first be paid to Finland and how its war against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940, known as the Winter War, influenced Adolf Hitler and his decision to launch Operation ‘Barbarossa.’ In regards to Sweden, attention will be paid to how critical Swedish iron ore was to the Nazi war economy. Finally, the thesis will examine how the Anglo- American interpretation of the German invasion of Norway is flawed. The thesis seeks to change the way that the role Scandinavia played during the Second World War is understood amongst Anglo-American historians and begin a new conversation on the story of World War II.

<p>The conversion in the Viking Age and the High Middle Agea in Scandinavia and how this affected women is discussed. Did women get a better life when the people had converted to Christianity or not. Our written sources are later than the conversion to Christianity. Instead the material culture, graves, grave goods and runic stones, can help us understand the life of women. Nordic mythology presents a contrast between faith in the Viking Age and Christianity.</p>