<p>The aim of this paper is to get a deeper understanding if research about international relations has any practical meaning. The main focal point is about the importance of the scholar idea soft power, and its meaning on foreign policy actions through expressions. A quantity and quality method is used. The point of the main theory that concerns international relations takes a rationalistic perspective, and expands it to the notion that ides can have an impact on policy outcomes. Three different types of research utilization can be traced to determine in which way an idea is getting implemented. Why certain ideas can be used lies in the foreign policy preferences with the political institutions and its policymakers. In the last ten years, policymaking preferences in the USA, Great Britain and Sweden have shifted due to change of governments, challenges by expanding institutions as the European Union (EU) and terror alerts. Soft power is an upcoming idea that can be traced in the countries policies. In conclusion, the concept is expressed in the political agendas on the margins. For the American and the British policy the importance with the idea seems to be utilized for mediation for the retention and the legitimating of there existing policies regarding hard power. The main purpose with the idea for Sweden seems to be the utilization for guidance to promote EU: s ability to act as a prominent actor in international relations. The idea is, acts and expressed foremost as a positive symbol for the countries, rather than a ground-breaking new idea that changes policies. Due to is variables already exist in the policymaking processes.</p>

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<p>In the Swedish elderly-care sector the institutions are of different character and the kind of care and food-supply they offer vary in scope and intensity. The aim of this study was to analyse how food and meals were handled and provided to the elderly living within those situations and in this context, how food was expressed as a substance or/and in symbols. This study focus on the social organisation that embraces the diet of the elderly and shapes the provisions of their meals, on the norms, values and behaviours of the different social identities in the organisation. The empirical work included in-depth interviews and participant observations in four different residential care homes, including various hierarchical levels, i.e. politicians and different personnel, in the organisation of food-supply to the elderly. In each care home different types of care and food-supply were studied, i.e. elderly having their meals in 24hour care, partime day care and those who ate in the restaurants. Generally, provision of meals was routine and meals were planned, prepared and served with little or no attention to what substanse and symbol it brought to the elderly. The elderly had limited possibilities to influence their own meals and those with the largest need of care, being the most fragile and sick had the least influence. The views of politicians and different personnel indicated that they considered themself powerless, which resulted in a "freedom of responsibility". It was obvious that there existed a clear discrepancy between how the informants considered the provision of food and meals should be organised and carried out, in comparison to reality. The current unsatisfactory provision of meals to the elderly is attributed to the marginalisation of specifically three areas: the symbolic value of food, the life and needs of the elderly and the traditional knowledge and experiences of women in their role as housewife and carer of the family.</p>

<p>This thesis treats ultrasheaves, sheaves on the category of ultrafilters. </p><p>In the classical theory of ultrapowers, you start with an ultrafilter and, given a structure, you construct the ultrapower of the structure over the ultrafilter. The fundamental result is Los's theorem for ultrapowers giving the connection between what formulas are satisfied in the ultrapower and in the original structure. In this thesis we instead start with the category of ultrafilters (denoted <b>U</b>). On this category <b>U</b> we build the topos of sheaves on <b>U</b> (the ultrasheaves), which we think of as generalized ultrapowers. </p><p>The theorem for ultrapowers corresponding to Los's theorem is Moerdijk's theorem, first proved by Moerdijk for the topos Sh(<b>F</b>) of sheaves on filters. In the thesis we prove that Los's theorem follows from Moerdijk's theorem. We also investigate the exact relation between the topos of ultrasheaves and Moerdijk's topos Sh(<b>F</b>) and prove that Sh(<b>U</b>) is the double negation subtopos of Sh(<b>F</b>). </p><p>The connection between ultrapowers and ultrasheaves is investigated in detail. We also prove some model theoretic results for ultrasheaves, for instance we prove that they are saturated models. The Rudin-Keisler ordering is a tool used in set theory to study ultrafilters. It has a strong relationship to the category <b>U</b>. Blass has given a model theoretic characterization of this ordering and in the thesis we give a new proof of his result. </p><p>One common use of ultrapowers is to give non-standard models. In the thesis we prove that you can model internal set theory (IST) in the ultrasheaves. IST, introduced by Nelson, is a non-standard set theory, an axiomatic approach to non-standard mathematics.</p>

<p>In fashion, as in the rest of the economy, the globalisation of taste, power and production now plays a major role. The industry is dominated by fashion capitals like Paris, London or New York, populated by star designers like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld or Jean-Paul Gaultier and controlled through MNC giants like Prada, Gucci, DKNY and Dior, who together influence consumer preferences on a global scale. However, there are numerous smaller actors that compete successfully in the fashion industry. Sweden is one such example, where fashion is a growing. </p><p>In this thesis, there is a focus on group of small and medium sized Swedish fashion firms with a brand focused business strategy. Their products are design intensive, but their main competitive advantage rests on the brand and brand management. This group of firms are proficient at ‘putting fashion into clothes’ (Weller 2004). In other words, their main competitive advantage rests neither on price, nor on the most experimental design. More exactly, they produce clothes for a fashion conscious but not too adventurous consumer group. In the thesis it is argued that they are better described as trend forerunners than as trend setters. The subject of this thesis is this group of firms within the Swedish fashion industry and the aim is to improve understanding of their innovation processes, competitiveness, and the systemic character of the business they are a part of. </p><p>As with most other fashion firms in high cost countries, Swedish companies has outsourced the garment production. They secure their competitive edge through high value added activities like design, marketing and retail. This points to the fact that fashion has both material and immaterial dimensions: it relates to clothing, design, textile and quality, but also to consumers’ subjective feelings and attitudes towards the clothes and their brands. This is a study of the interface between these dimensions, with a focal point on the production of immaterial and symbolic value. The systemic nature of fashion can hardly be overestimated. This goes for both the practical part of clothes production, but also for the production of a belief system created not only by fashion producers but by a whole set of institutional actors. This thesis has an analysis of fashion firms’ relations to business partners, competitors, media, and consumers. It is argued that the nature of these relations is critical for competition and success.</p><p>The thesis is a collection of papers, which illuminates different parts of innovation, competition and business strategies in the fashion industry. The papers cover the central activity areas for fashion firms: how branding is affecting industrial structure and innovation, how symbolic is value created, and how ‘cool’ is used as a strategic resource. </p>

Dans le contexte mécatronique actuel, la simulation en temps réel de la dynamique de systèmes multicorps complexes ainsi que la portabilité des modèles demeurent un challenge. La génération symbolique est le seul moyen d'obtenir des modèles dynamiques efficaces et utilisables dans la plus grande variété d'environnements de calcul. La contribution essentielle de cette thèse est de montrer que l'utilisation conjointe de l'approche symbolique et de la technique du partitionnement des coordonnées permet de produire des modèles dynamiques très efficaces pour l'analyse des systèmes multicorps complexes, dont la topologie contient des boucles cinématiques. Nous déterminons une partition optimale des coordonnées en vue d'obtenir une factorisation, sous forme bloc triangulaire, de la sous-matrice Jacobienne des contraintes associée aux coordonnées dépendantes. Nous calculons explicitement les coordonnées dépendantes, nous produisons un ensemble réduit d'équations du mouvement purement différentielles et nous les résolvons de manière complètement symbolique. Les modèles de systèmes multicorps complexes ainsi générés contiennent un nombre d'opérations nettement moindre que ceux obtenus par les approches numériques pourtant plus répandues, ce qui permet de les utiliser pour des applications temps réel. Ayant pour objectif une réduction maximale du temps de calcul, nous avons étudié deux méthodes de parallélisation automatique par voie symbolique. L'une exploite le taux de parallélisme important présent au niveau des opérations arithmétiques, et vise des architectures parallèles spécifiques. L'autre se base sur la topologie du système pour découper les modèles en vue de leur exécution sur des ordinateurs parallèles conventionnels. Les développements effectués dans le cadre de ce travail ont été implémentés dans le logiciel ROBOTRAN, un outil de génération symbolique d'équations développé dans notre laboratoire et dédicacé à l'étude des systèmes multicorps.

We give a brief survey on some new developments on elliptic operators on manifolds with polyhedral singularities. The material essentially corresponds to a talk given by the author during the Conference “Elliptic and Hyperbolic Equations on Singular Spaces”, October 27 - 31, 2008, at the MSRI, University of Berkeley.

In the Swedish elderly-care sector the institutions are of different character and the kind of care and food-supply they offer vary in scope and intensity. The aim of this study was to analyse how food and meals were handled and provided to the elderly living within those situations and in this context, how food was expressed as a substance or/and in symbols. This study focus on the social organisation that embraces the diet of the elderly and shapes the provisions of their meals, on the norms, values and behaviours of the different social identities in the organisation. The empirical work included in-depth interviews and participant observations in four different residential care homes, including various hierarchical levels, i.e. politicians and different personnel, in the organisation of food-supply to the elderly. In each care home different types of care and food-supply were studied, i.e. elderly having their meals in 24hour care, partime day care and those who ate in the restaurants. Generally, provision of meals was routine and meals were planned, prepared and served with little or no attention to what substanse and symbol it brought to the elderly. The elderly had limited possibilities to influence their own meals and those with the largest need of care, being the most fragile and sick had the least influence. The views of politicians and different personnel indicated that they considered themself powerless, which resulted in a "freedom of responsibility". It was obvious that there existed a clear discrepancy between how the informants considered the provision of food and meals should be organised and carried out, in comparison to reality. The current unsatisfactory provision of meals to the elderly is attributed to the marginalisation of specifically three areas: the symbolic value of food, the life and needs of the elderly and the traditional knowledge and experiences of women in their role as housewife and carer of the family.

This thesis treats ultrasheaves, sheaves on the category of ultrafilters. In the classical theory of ultrapowers, you start with an ultrafilter and, given a structure, you construct the ultrapower of the structure over the ultrafilter. The fundamental result is Los's theorem for ultrapowers giving the connection between what formulas are satisfied in the ultrapower and in the original structure. In this thesis we instead start with the category of ultrafilters (denoted <b>U</b>). On this category <b>U</b> we build the topos of sheaves on <b>U</b> (the ultrasheaves), which we think of as generalized ultrapowers. The theorem for ultrapowers corresponding to Los's theorem is Moerdijk's theorem, first proved by Moerdijk for the topos Sh(<b>F</b>) of sheaves on filters. In the thesis we prove that Los's theorem follows from Moerdijk's theorem. We also investigate the exact relation between the topos of ultrasheaves and Moerdijk's topos Sh(<b>F</b>) and prove that Sh(<b>U</b>) is the double negation subtopos of Sh(<b>F</b>). The connection between ultrapowers and ultrasheaves is investigated in detail. We also prove some model theoretic results for ultrasheaves, for instance we prove that they are saturated models. The Rudin-Keisler ordering is a tool used in set theory to study ultrafilters. It has a strong relationship to the category <b>U</b>. Blass has given a model theoretic characterization of this ordering and in the thesis we give a new proof of his result. One common use of ultrapowers is to give non-standard models. In the thesis we prove that you can model internal set theory (IST) in the ultrasheaves. IST, introduced by Nelson, is a non-standard set theory, an axiomatic approach to non-standard mathematics.