The contemporary society reflects with countless of non-functional, i.e. luxurious, products which, with their redundant property, have a wasteful or negative impact on customers’ survival value and their living environment. Customers have a tendency to make biased judgments in the choice of the products they purchase, causing them to confuse many of such non-functional product features with the functional ones and constantly encourage their market production. This may reflect a variety of impacts on the market: decreasing the pace and course of development products’ actual, functional quality while increasing the pace and course of development for products’ non-functional, luxurious quality; constant increments of prices disproportionate to the product’s actual quality; discard of functional investments; utilization of wasteful resources; etc. This study will suggest a link between products’ price-quality disproportions in the development of new models and the customers’ biased emotional purchasing-decisions before buying a product. With that, it will indicate how customer’s emotions play a role in products’ future industrial quality developments and how biased emotional perceptions contribute to non-functional or luxurious quality developments. Consequently, implications are also found for the psychological and economical causalities behind our ubiquitously polluted environments.

Denna studie syftade till att undersöka elitidrottares anknytning till arbete under och efter avslutad idrottskarriär - och deras psykiska välbefinnande och anpassning kring avslutet på karriären. Studien var avgränsad till sporten bandy och gjord i en svensk småstad där bandy är den största på orten. Studien gjordes med intervjuer, antingen ansikte mot ansikte eller per telefon. Resultatet visade att samtliga upplevde att de hade haft stor hjälp av sin organisation/klubb att hitta jobb, och hade jobbat större delen under sina aktiva idrottskarriärer. Samtliga hade heltidsanställningar när intervjuerna gjordes. Deltagarna anpassade sig bra till ett civilt yrkesliv efter avslutad idrottskarriär  - trots att den första perioden just vid tiden runt avslutet upplevdes som traumatisk. Det psykiska välbefinnandet upplevdes som gott när väl denna anpassning skett. / Ina qualitative study professional athletes relation to employment - during andafter retirement from the sport was explored. The psychological transition fromactive to retired active was also investigated - and so was the psychologicalwell-being . The study was limited to the sport of bandy and the study was done in a smallSwedish town where bandy is the biggest sport around.  Interviews were made face to face with theinformants, or by telephone. The result showed that all the informants felt thatthey have had great assistance from the club in  finding employment, and all informants had civilemployments during their career as professional athletes.  All informants had fulltime employments whenthe interviews were made (except for one who was retired). The participants adjustedthemselves well psychologically to a life focused solely on family and a civilcareer - though the first period just around the retirement from bandy wereexperienced as traumatic.  Thepsychological well-being was experienced as good when the transition fromprofessional athlete to a civil career was well in place.

Syfte och frågeställningar Syftet med denna undersökning är att genom intervention utvärdera vilken effekt Positiv Psykologi, i form av CASIO-modellen, har på välmående, stresshantering och copingförmåga hos elever som går tredje året på en idrottsinriktad gymnasieutbildning. Våra frågeställningar var: - Vilka skillnader kan vi se mellan för- och eftertesten i interventionsgruppen? - Vilka skillnader kan vi se mellan för- och eftertesten i kontrollgruppen? - Vilka skillnader kan vi se mellan interventions- och kontrollgruppen i för- och eftertesten? Metod Vi har använt oss av en kvantitativ interventionsstudie som pågick i sex veckor med en grupp elever som gick tredje året på ett idrottsinriktat gymnasium som valdes ut genom ett bekvämlighetsurval. Interventionen hade CASIO-modellen ( Circumstances, Attitude, Standards, Importance & Other things) som grund. Denna modell är sprungen ur den positiva psykologin, och den syftar till att ge deltagarna verktyg att lösa problem i livet och öka sin livskvallitet. För att besvara våra frågeställningar har vi använt oss av tre olika enkäter som behandlar välmående, stress och copingförmåga. Dessa enkäter besvarades före och efter interventionen. För att analysera resultaten från för- och eftertesterna har vi använt oss av statistikprogrammet SPSS och gjort Paired Sample T-tests. Resultat När det kom till totat välmående och stresshantering fann vi inga statistiskt signifikanta förbättringar eller försämringar i interventionsgruppen. Däremot hade det skett statistiskt signifikanta försämringar inom vissa områden inom välmåendet. Interventionsgruppen hade dock statistiskt signifikant förbättrats på ett område inom copingförmåga och det var när det kom till strategin att ventilera tankar. Slutsats Vår studie gav inga större positiva effekter på gymnasieelever på ett idrottsinriktat gymnasium utan snarare tvärtom. Dock kan tidpunkten för för- och eftertesten fungera som en confounder som kan påverka de statistiskt signifikanta försämringar då eleverna hade en hög arbetsbelastning i skolan vid eftertesterna vilket de inte hade vid förtesterna. / Aim The purpose of this study was to investigate if Positive Psychology, in terms of the CASIOmodel, through intervention affected students at a sports gymnasium when it comes to wellbeing, stress and coping abilities. We focused on the following questions: - What differences can we see from the pre- to the after tests in the intervention group? - What differences can we see from the pre- to the after tests in the control group? - What differences can we see between the intervention- and control group in the pre and the after tests? Method The method we used in our study was a six week long quantitative intervention and the participants was students at a sports gymnasium. We used a convenience selection. We used the CASIO-model (Circumstances, Attitude, Standards, Importance & Other things) as foundation for the intervention. This model is originated from the Positive Psychology and gives the participants tools to solve problems in life and increase their quality of life. To answer our questions we have used three different surveys that process well-being, stress and coping abilities. These surveys were handed out to the students before the intervention and one week after it was finished. To interpret the results we ran a couple of Paired Sample Tests in the statistic program SPSS. Results When it came to total well-being and stress there were no statistical significant changes in the intervention group. But when it came to some parts of the well-being there were some statistical significant deteriorations. In the coping ability survey there were some positive statistical significant changes in the coping strategy ventilate thoughts. Conclusions Our study did not have any major positive effects on students at a sports gymnasium, rather the opposite effect. The time for the pre- and after test  could work as a confounder that affects the result because by the time of the after test the students had a heavier workload at school than at the pretest.

Bakgrund: Bröstcancer är den vanligaste cancersjukdom bland kvinnor i Sverige och i världen. Mellan 15 och 20 kvinnor insjuknar varje dag. Att få beskedet bröstcancer skapar förde flesta förvirring, ångest och chock såväl hos den som är sjuk som hos de som står den drabbade kvinnan nära. De förändringar som uppstår i samband med sjukdomen och de olika behandlingarna har stor inverkan på kvinnornas självkänsla och upplevelse av hälsa. Syftet: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att beskriva kvinnors upplevelse av att leva med bröstcancer. Metod: Kvalitativ metod har används för att få en djupare förståelse i människors upplevelse och erfarenheter. Två själbiografiska böcker valdes ut för analys. Resultat: I resultatet redovisas ett tema; Kvinnors upplevelse av att leva med sjukdomen bröstcancer och fyra kategorier; Att få besked, att få behandling, efter diagnos och uppleva stöd, samt niounderkategorier; tankar och känslor kring beskedet, förnekande av sjukdom, oro och rädsla,ångest och lidande, fysiska förändringar, psykiska förändringar, av familjen, omgivningen ochandra i samma situation samt sjukvårdpersonalen. Resultatet beskriver bland annat kvinnornas känslomässiga upplevelse samt vad det innebär att leva med bröstcancer. Slutsats: För att en bröstcancer patient ska få den ultimata omvårdnaden så är det av stor betydelse att ta vara påpatientens individuella upplevelse och behov. / Background: Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women not only in Sweden but worldwide. Somewhere between 15 to 20 women are diagnosed with this type of cancer each day. Being told that you have breast cancer usually results in confusion, anxiety and shock for the one who is ill as well as for those closely related to the affected women. Symptoms of the sickness and side effects of the various treatments have a major impact on women's self-esteem and health experience. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe women's experience of living with breast cancer. Method: Qualitative methodology is used to understand and penetrate deeper into people's perception and experience of the disease. Two autobiographical books were selected to analyze. Results: The result is presented in one theme; Women’s experience of living with the sickness breast cancer and four categories;Receiving the diagnose, getting treatment, after the diagnose and to experience support, as well as nine sub-categories, thoughts and feelings about diagnose, denial of illness, anxiety and fear, anguish and suffering, physical changes, mental changes, the family, surroundings and others in the same situation and finally medical personnel. The results describe among other things women's emotional experience and what it means to live with breast cancer. Conclusions: For a breast cancer patient to receive the best possible care, it is of the greatest importance to be aware of the patient's individual experience and needs.

Att drabbas av en reumatisk sjukdom kan ge fysiska symtom som inflammation, funktionsinskränkning och immunreaktioner. Sjukdomen ger konsekvenser i vardagslivet som kan påverka aktivitetsutförandet i roller. Syftet med studien var att beskriva hur personer med reumatisk sjukdom kan uppleva påverkan på sina roller i vardagslivet. Integrerad metod användes med lämplighetssampling på tio personer med reumatisk sjukdom. Instrumentet Rollchecklistan och semistrukturerade intervjuer användes för att få en täckande och tillförlitlig bild av upplevd påverkan av roller. Resultatet beskrevs genom en tabell, en schematisk bild samt beskrivande text med citat. Studien visade att reumatisk sjukdom upplevdes påverka roller i vardagslivet genom bland annat funktionsinskränkning och minskad uthållighet. Rollen som yrkesarbetande och hemarbetande upplevdes påverkade genom att de minskade eller försvann helt. Personer som hade utvecklat strategier upplevde inte lika stor påverkan på sina roller. Författarna anser att strategier kan hjälpa personer med reumatisk sjukdom att bevara sina roller trots insjuknandet. Arbetsterapeuter spelar en viktig och avgörande roll där de genom att lära ut strategier gör det möjligt för människor att engagera sig i aktiviteter som skapar mening och tillfredställelse. Detta främjar fysiskt och emotionellt välbefinnande för personen. / To suffer from a rheumatic disease may cause physical symptoms such as inflammation, functional impairment and immune reactions. The disease results in consequences in the everyday life that may affect activity performance in roles. The purpose of this study was to describe how people with rheumatic disease can experience impact on their roles in everyday life. Integral method was used with match sampling on ten people with rheumatic disease. The instrument Role Checklist and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain a comprehensive and reliable picture of experiences impact in roles. The result was described in a table, a schematic figure and descriptive text with quotations. The study showed that a rheumatic disease had an experienced impact on roles in everyday life through functional impairments and reduced endurance. The worker-role and home maintainer influenced, since they were decreased or completely missing. People who had developed strategies did not experience as much influence on their roles. The authors believe that strategies can help people with rheumatic disease to maintain their roles despite sickness. Occupational therapists plays an important and crucial role by teaching strategies enabling people to engage in activities which can cause meaning and satisfaction. This promotes physical and emotional wellbeing for the person.

Nowadays most companies are now being faced with the reality that Corporate Social Responsibility is more than merely a fad. Drawing upon CSR, HR and stakeholder related theories this research aims to substantiate empirically by exploring HR¡¦s contribution to responsible leadership within corporations with the endeavor to explore to what extent Taiwanese companies have integrated CSR practices in their Human Resource Management policies and practices. Relying on the quantitative analysis of 82 questionnaires and qualitative analysis of interviews with CSR and HR executives from 3 corporations in Taiwan, an analysis of whether HR supporting functions towards employee training and development (CSR and General), employee wellbeing, employee engagement and CSR communication to employees contributed to the success of CSR programs. Findings of this research uncovered that companies pay due attention to employee training and development, employee wellbeing as well as employee engagement. The study also helped explain the existence of implicit CSR practices in Taiwanese firms suggesting that an inside-out approach to CSR communication exists in Taiwanese firms; most firms do not engage in philanthropic activities but are more akin to ensuring that they maintain a high level of employee work-life balance. The thesis concludes that the HR has the potential to dig deeper into the company levels and structures and identifying underlying definitional issues that may prevent or facilitate the success of CSR programs.

<p>Att drabbas av en reumatisk sjukdom kan ge fysiska symtom som inflammation, funktionsinskränkning och immunreaktioner. Sjukdomen ger konsekvenser i vardagslivet som kan påverka aktivitetsutförandet i roller.</p><p>Syftet med studien var att beskriva hur personer med reumatisk sjukdom kan uppleva påverkan på sina roller i vardagslivet.</p><p>Integrerad metod användes med lämplighetssampling på tio personer med reumatisk sjukdom. Instrumentet Rollchecklistan och semistrukturerade intervjuer användes för att få en täckande och tillförlitlig bild av upplevd påverkan av roller.</p><p>Resultatet beskrevs genom en tabell, en schematisk bild samt beskrivande text med citat. Studien visade att reumatisk sjukdom upplevdes påverka roller i vardagslivet genom bland annat funktionsinskränkning och minskad uthållighet. Rollen som yrkesarbetande och hemarbetande upplevdes påverkade genom att de minskade eller försvann helt. Personer som hade utvecklat strategier upplevde inte lika stor påverkan på sina roller.</p><p>Författarna anser att strategier kan hjälpa personer med reumatisk sjukdom att bevara sina roller trots insjuknandet. Arbetsterapeuter spelar en viktig och avgörande roll där de genom att lära ut strategier gör det möjligt för människor att engagera sig i aktiviteter som skapar mening och tillfredställelse. Detta främjar fysiskt och emotionellt välbefinnande för personen.</p> / <p>To suffer from a rheumatic disease may cause physical symptoms such as inflammation, functional impairment and immune reactions. The disease results in consequences in the everyday life that may affect activity performance in roles.</p><p>The purpose of this study was to describe how people with rheumatic disease can experience impact on their roles in everyday life.</p><p>Integral method was used with match sampling on ten people with rheumatic disease. The instrument Role Checklist and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain a comprehensive and reliable picture of experiences impact in roles.</p><p>The result was described in a table, a schematic figure and descriptive text with quotations. The study showed that a rheumatic disease had an experienced impact on roles in everyday life through functional impairments and reduced endurance. The worker-role and home maintainer influenced, since they were decreased or completely missing. People who had developed strategies did not experience as much influence on their roles.</p><p>The authors believe that strategies can help people with rheumatic disease to maintain their roles despite sickness. Occupational therapists plays an important and crucial role by teaching strategies enabling people to engage in activities which can cause meaning and satisfaction. This promotes physical and emotional wellbeing for the person.</p>

During the latest decade Somali-born women with experiences of long-lasting war followed by migration have increasingly encountered Swedish maternity care, where antenatal care midwives are assigned to ask questions about exposure to violence. The overall aim in this thesis was to gain deeper understanding of Somali-born women’s wellbeing and needs during the parallel transitions of migration to Sweden and childbearing, focusing on maternity healthcare encounters and violence. Data were obtained from medical records (paper I), qualitative interviews with Somali-born women (II, III) and Swedish antenatal care midwives (IV). Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used. Compared to pregnancies of Swedish-born women, Somali-born women’s pregnancies demonstrated later booking and less visits to antenatal care, more maternal morbidity but less psychiatric treatment, less medical pain relief during delivery and more emergency caesarean sections and small-for-gestational-age infants (I). Political violence with broken societal structures before migration contributed to up-rootedness, limited healthcare and absent state-based support to women subjected to violence, which reinforced reliance on social networks, own endurance and faith in Somalia (II). After migration, sources of wellbeing were a pragmatic “moving-on” approach including faith and motherhood, combined with social coherence. Lawful rights for women were appreciated but could concurrently risk creating power tensions in partner relationships. Generally, the Somali-born women associated the midwife more with providing medical care than with overall wellbeing or concerns about violence, but new societal resources were parallel incorporated with known resources (III). Midwives strived for woman-centered approaches beyond ethnicity and culture in care encounters, with language, social gaps and divergent views on violence as potential barriers in violence inquiry. Somali-born women’s strength and contentment were highlighted, and ongoing violence seldom encountered according to the midwives experiences (IV). Pragmatism including “moving on” combined with support from family and social networks, indicate capability to cope with violence and migration-related stress. However, this must be balanced against potential unspoken needs at individual level in care encounters.With trustful relationships, optimized interaction and networking with local Somali communities and across professions, the antenatal midwife can have a “bridging-function” in balancing between dual societies and contribute to healthy transitions in the new society.

This thesis is the first step in a research project which aims to develop an accurate and robust theory of global justice. The thesis concerns the content of our duties of global justice, under strict compliance theory. It begins by discussing the basic framework of my theory of global justice, which consists in two aspects: duties of minimal wellbeing, which are universal, and duties of fairness and equality, which are associative and not universal. With that in place, it briefly discusses the nature of duties of fairness and equality. I shall argue that they are associative, because they are derived from the form of cooperation at hand; and that there are three kinds of them in our contemporary world: states, local cooperation and trans-state cooperation. It is from their forms of cooperation that these duties are derived. After that, the thesis focuses exclusively on duties of minimal wellbeing. Against the usual account of these duties - the human-flourishing account - I argue for my human-life account. This account argues that the function of these duties is to secure a human life for individuals; and it begins with a Razian conception of wellbeing, which states that the wellbeing of an individual is fundamentally constituted by: (a) the satisfaction of his biological needs, and (b) his success in whole-heartedly pursuing socially defined and determined goals and activities which are in fact valuable. An account of what constitutes a human life is then derived from this conception of wellbeing – it is a life that consists in having a level of wellbeing that is higher than the satisfaction of biological needs, where this is constituted by the pursuit of goals and activities with a sense of what is worth doing; and this in turn consists in: (a) being able to forms ideas of what is worth doing, (b) being able to revise them in light of further reasons, and (c) being able to coordinate one's actions according to them. I then determine the specific objects of duties of minimal wellbeing (means for the satisfaction of biological needs, education, physical security, freedom of belief, association and expression, freedom of non-harmful conduct, and minimal resources), by determining what is involved in securing such a human life for individuals.

In drylands, it is essential to maximize the coupling of social and ecological systems in order to achieve sustainability, particularly in human dominated landscapes such as cities. The enhanced use of greenspace in cities in drylands provides unique opportunities to maximize the coupling of social and ecological systems. It maintains the functioning of ecological systems while involving civil society in the conservation of biodiversity and improving human wellbeing in urban settings. The provision and access to greenspace in cities is determined by neighborhood design. The access for the human use of greenspace can be enhanced through walkability, or the characteristics of the built environment that influence physical activity. Walkable neighborhoods that provide access to greenspace can be catalysts for activity and health and have the potential to increase the level of conservation support in urban residents. The purpose of this research is to look for wellbeing and conservation synergies between walkable neighborhoods and the enhanced use of greenspace. To accomplish this research, first we assess walkability in the built environment through an interdisciplinary literature review that integrates the findings on walkability from several research domains. We create a conceptual framework that organizes the neighborhood design elements that influence physical activity into nine walkability categories: connectivity, land-use, density, traffic safety, surveillance, parking, experience, greenspace, and community. We call this the Walkability Framework. This analysis allows us to identify gaps and strengths of walkability in the Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) certification system. After a quantitative and qualitative analysis, we propose an enhanced version for walkability that we call LEED-NDW+ (walkability plus). The next step is to test if the Walkability Framework can be used as a model to measure the interactions between the built environment and physical activity. We accomplish this through the use of a questionnaire (N=486) that captures the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of residents in Tucson, Arizona. Significant correlations between all the walkability categories and physical activity support the use of the framework as a model. We call this the Walkability Model. The final stage of this research uses the Walkability Model to evaluate walkability in four neighborhood design types in Tucson that include traditional development, suburban development, enclosed community, and cluster housing. We then look for wellbeing and conservation synergies between walkable neighborhoods and the enhanced use of greenspace. Results from this study suggest that neighborhoods with a high level of walkability have the potential to enhance the use of greenspace, which in turn provide important wellbeing and conservation synergies that can contribute to healthier communities and increase the support for conservation of biodiversity within and beyond cities. The enhanced use of greenspace maximizes the coupling of social and ecological systems in cities in drylands, which increases resilience in the face of climate change.