<p>The aim with this thesis is to study how the phenomenon young people who run away from home (runaways) is presented in the research literature. The question at issue in our thesis is: How does research literature present the phenomenon of young people who run away from home? We have selected seven primary documents that we consider gives a broad picture of the knowledge about runaways. We have a postmodern and a hermeneutic approach in our thesis. Our material has been analyzed on the basis of social constructionist theory and the new sociological paradigm of childhood. The research findings show that there are no uniform picture of the young people who run away from home. The act, to run away from home, is also described in various ways. Runaways are often described as victims of difficult life circumstances and the act, to run away from home, is in most cases considered as a reaction to a serious situation at home. We also found descriptions where the young people are presented as strong manipulative individuals. The act, to run away from home, is presented as a violation against the universal social norms considering when and how the youth is allowed to leave the parental home.</p>

The aim with this thesis is to study how the phenomenon young people who run away from home (runaways) is presented in the research literature. The question at issue in our thesis is: How does research literature present the phenomenon of young people who run away from home? We have selected seven primary documents that we consider gives a broad picture of the knowledge about runaways. We have a postmodern and a hermeneutic approach in our thesis. Our material has been analyzed on the basis of social constructionist theory and the new sociological paradigm of childhood. The research findings show that there are no uniform picture of the young people who run away from home. The act, to run away from home, is also described in various ways. Runaways are often described as victims of difficult life circumstances and the act, to run away from home, is in most cases considered as a reaction to a serious situation at home. We also found descriptions where the young people are presented as strong manipulative individuals. The act, to run away from home, is presented as a violation against the universal social norms considering when and how the youth is allowed to leave the parental home.

This paper analyzes the stress and coping mechanisms of lesbian homeless adolescents to identify potential buffers against homelessness. The Minority Stress Model and identity theories are used as a framework to interpret the findings in the literature. Based on the findings in the literature, it is possible to conclude that lesbian homeless youth are more susceptible to minority stress due to a lack of adaptive coping resources and social support. Increased levels of minority stress may lead to internalizing and externalizing symptoms that cause runaway and throwaway episodes in homeless youth. This paper proposes a new model to understand the internal and environmental factors that contribute to homelessness in lesbian adolescents.

<p>Software prototyping is considered to be one of the most important tools that are used by software engineersnowadays to be able to understand the customer’s requirements, and develop software products that are efficient,reliable, and acceptable economically. Software engineers can choose any of the available prototyping approaches tobe used, based on the software that they intend to develop and how fast they would like to go during the softwaredevelopment. But generally speaking all prototyping approaches are aimed to help the engineers to understand thecustomer’s true needs, examine different software solutions and quality aspect, verification activities…etc, that mightaffect the quality of the software underdevelopment, as well as avoiding any potential development risks.A combination of several prototyping approaches, and brainstorming techniques which have fulfilled the aim of theknowledge extraction approach, have resulted in developing a prototyping approach that the engineers will use todevelop one and only one throwaway prototype to extract more knowledge than expected, in order to improve thequality of the software underdevelopment by spending more time studying it from different points of view.The knowledge extraction approach, then, was applied to the developed prototyping approach in which thedeveloped model was treated as software prototype, in order to gain more knowledge out of it. This activity hasresulted in several points of view, and improvements that were implemented to the developed model and as a resultAgile Prototyping AP, was developed. AP integrated more development approaches to the first developedprototyping model, such as: agile, documentation, software configuration management, and fractional factorialdesign, in which the main aim of developing one, and only one prototype, to help the engineers gaining moreknowledge, and reducing effort, time, and cost of development was accomplished but still developing softwareproducts with satisfying quality is done by developing an evolutionary prototyping and building throwawayprototypes on top of it.</p>

Software prototyping is considered to be one of the most important tools that are used by software engineersnowadays to be able to understand the customer’s requirements, and develop software products that are efficient,reliable, and acceptable economically. Software engineers can choose any of the available prototyping approaches tobe used, based on the software that they intend to develop and how fast they would like to go during the softwaredevelopment. But generally speaking all prototyping approaches are aimed to help the engineers to understand thecustomer’s true needs, examine different software solutions and quality aspect, verification activities…etc, that mightaffect the quality of the software underdevelopment, as well as avoiding any potential development risks.A combination of several prototyping approaches, and brainstorming techniques which have fulfilled the aim of theknowledge extraction approach, have resulted in developing a prototyping approach that the engineers will use todevelop one and only one throwaway prototype to extract more knowledge than expected, in order to improve thequality of the software underdevelopment by spending more time studying it from different points of view.The knowledge extraction approach, then, was applied to the developed prototyping approach in which thedeveloped model was treated as software prototype, in order to gain more knowledge out of it. This activity hasresulted in several points of view, and improvements that were implemented to the developed model and as a resultAgile Prototyping AP, was developed. AP integrated more development approaches to the first developedprototyping model, such as: agile, documentation, software configuration management, and fractional factorialdesign, in which the main aim of developing one, and only one prototype, to help the engineers gaining moreknowledge, and reducing effort, time, and cost of development was accomplished but still developing softwareproducts with satisfying quality is done by developing an evolutionary prototyping and building throwawayprototypes on top of it.

Planned obsolescence is the term used to describe incentives of companies to make durable goods faster obsolete. The aim of the study is to make a big picture and real situation about planned obsolescence practising and consumer disposal behaviour. First part addresses the theoretical background and provides comprehensive overview through different aspects of the good's durability issue and planned obsolescence characteristics and influences. Second part in further reference to the information provided in theoretical part examines the situation of specific durable products - laptops. From survey's results on consumer attitudes towards durability of laptops and real case study on Apple Inc. and its reliance to planned obsolescence, recommendations to the more sustainable consumption of consumer electronics are presented.