Synen på sex kan se väldigt olika ut beroende på dess kontext, och för att kunna förstå sex och sexualitet i sin helhet krävs det att det ses ur sitt sociala, historiska, kulturella och politiska sammanhang. Studien utgår från en komparativ ansats, då den avser att identifiera eventuella samband och skillnader mellan Sverige och Nederländerna kring synen på sex, samt vad som kan vara orsaken till dessa. Som jämförande länder valdes Sverige och Nederländerna då de kan ses som varandras motpoler när det kommer till konservativa och liberala värderingar. Studien undersöker sex utifrån unga kvinnors perspektiv, och material har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer i respektive land. Således är syftet med studien att undersöka unga kvinnors syn på sex i Sverige samt Nederländerna. Resultaten visade att trots olika värderingar och politiska åsikter i länderna så har unga kvinnor liknande tankar och upplevelser när det kommer till synen på sex. Den främsta förklaringen till de liknande åsikterna kopplas till feminismens utveckling samt internet som informationskälla. Den största skillnaden i åsikter hos kvinnorna var kring sexuellt arbete såsom prostitution, där kvinnorna i Sverige var negativa medan kvinnorna i Nederländerna var positiva, men med en viss skepticism. En möjlig förklaring till att kvinnorna i Nederländerna var mer positiva till prostitution var på grund av normaliseringen som skett genom inflytande från politiken.

Ecology is a critical current of thought towards industrialized societies, which spreads throughout the Western countries in the second half of the 20th century. As a social movement, Ecologists try to set the rules of a society more respectful of the environment and the living conditions ; as a political movement, they offer a new model for society. Between 1960 and 1990, France and Germany present similarities regarding a growing sensitivity towards the environmental issues in their populations and the progressive accession of ecology to the political stage. A more detailed analysis nevertheless reveals historical, economical, social, political and institutional as well as cultural and mental characteristics peculiar to each country underlining important differences in these fields and explaining the clichés about a romantic Germany concerned with the need to preserve the biosphere and a Cartesian France ignoring the environment. / L’écologie est un courant de pensée critique à l’encontre des sociétés industrialisées qui se développe dans la seconde moitié du XXème siècle en Occident. En tant que mouvement social, les écologistes cherchent à définir les règles d’une société plus respectueuse de l’environnement et du cadre de vie ; en tant que courant politique, leurs réflexions ont pour but de proposer un autre modèle de société. Entre 1960 et 1990, la France et l’Allemagne présentent des similitudes en matière de prise de conscience environnementale au sein de la population et au niveau de l’arrivée de l’écologie sur la scène politique. Une analyse comparative plus précise dévoile toutefois des caractéristiques historiques, économiques, sociales, politiques et institutionnelles ainsi que culturelles et mentales propres à chaque pays qui permettent de souligner des divergences importantes dans ces domaines et d’expliquer les clichés se rapportant à une Allemagne romantique, sensible à la protection de la biosphère, et une France cartésienne, négligente sur le plan environnemental.

This research provides a comparative study of the Japanese and German nursing home sectors. Faced with aging populations, both countries share similar long-term care policies based on social insurance. However, descriptive statistics indicate significant differences in the outcomes and costs in their respective nursing home sectors. This research aims to identify the reasons for this state of affairs by examining demographic and policy differences between the two countries. To shed light on the subject from multiple angles, we conduct three types of empirical analysis—regression, the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, and data envelopment analysis—on regional data from the past decade. Our findings indicate that the different outcomes are driven by both demographic and policy differences where policy relates to long-term care as well as to additional welfare aid. In terms of policy, a key difference is found in the designs of the welfare programs for low-income elders. In Germany, our results are consistent with moral hazard due to the generous design of the welfare program, while in Japan, our results do not indicate moral hazard, which may be due to strict nursing home admission rules for welfare recipients.

The new curriculum reforms of Czech and Slovak educational systems provide schools enough room for new effective methods developing pupil's key competence. The dissertation deals with one of them - the project-based teaching, especially in science subjects in the second stage of basic school. It presents results of a comparative study which was conducted 2008/2009 school year. The most important aim was to establish and compare common characteristics of realized projects. The sample consisted of 180 Czech and 71 Slovak basic schools. The projects data and views of teachers were collected via a questionnaire. The results of the survey indicated that project-based teachings in science subjects was used in more than 80 % of Czech schools and more than 60 % of Slovak schools. Schools in both countries preferred projects realized only in one class, by one teacher and within the frame of one science subject. Czech schools preferred short projects that lasted no more than one week, Slovak schools organized mostly long projects lasting more than one week. Most projects in Czech schools were short-term, lasting on average no more than one week. Projects in Slovak schools on the other hand lasted on average more than one week. The majority of projects were planned and prepared by a teacher. Teachers were...

This diploma thesis mainly deals with the attitudes of professionals from helping professions towards people with disabilities. Nowadays is a great emphasis on the theme of inclusion of handicapped people and is important to go especially those people who interact with them most frequently with their attitudes and behaviour as example for society. The aim of the study is to compare responses of four selected professional areas - education, psychology, social work and health, and to determine differences in attitudes and opinions towards people with disabilities. The first part contains theoretical ground concepts related to attitudes, handicapped persons and survey conducted research on this topic. The second part is dedicated to the research conducted using a structured questionnaire. This research showed that some selected attitudes across helping professions are really different.

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This essay is a comparative study of Judeo-Christian religion and religions from the ancient Middle East, mainly ancient Sumer/Mesopotamia and Egypt, with focus on the common symbols; the serpent, the cow and the tree. The comparison of the three symbols from different religious traditions highlights that there are both key differences and similarities. The differences and similarities are then explained with the help of professor Yair Zakovitch theory inverted reflections stories also referred to as mirror-narratives, which is an intertextual theory. The application of the theory helps to establish that many of the biblical myths are part of a large collection of polemical literature. A strategy within polemics was to invert symbols and motifs from the so called ”pagan” tradition and associate an old well known motif with the opposite meaning in the later biblical reinterpretations, or what Zakovitch identifies as mirror-narratives. The result of this study shows that the theory mirror-narratives is very fruitful in the comparison of Judeo-Christian religion and ”pagan” religions from the ancient Middle East.

The Swedish author Fredrika Bremer's novel Grannarne was published in 1837, and the English translation The Neighbours was published in London in 1842. This novel as well as other novels by Bremer which were published in English in the 1840s, were widely read and they were very popular with readers as well as with literary critics. As has been noted formerly, there are certain striking likenesses between The Neighbours and Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847. In this essay, a comparative study is made of motifs found in both novels, such as "The Byronic Hero", and "The Strange Woman" as well as structures such as "the acceptance of guilt", followed by "judgement" and the possibility of "mercy", which are also found in both novels. In the last chapter, there is a discussion of the characters' perception of their respective worlds as primarily conditioned by religion, and how this is manifested in the previous chapters of the essay. A connection between Bertha in Jane Eyre and Hagar in The Neighbours is explored and a suggestion is made of a possible connection between Hagar and the ancient poet Sappho.

The selection of machine learning algorithm used to solve a problem is an important choice. This paper outlines research measuring three performance metrics for eight different algorithms on a prediction task involving under- graduate admissions data. The algorithms that were tested are k-nearest neighbours, decision trees, random forests, gradient tree boosting, logistic regression, naive bayes, support vector machines, and artificial neural net- works. These algorithms were compared in terms of accuracy, training time, and execution time. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)