How the renovation of the vast Swedish existing building stock with renovation needs will be performed is considered as decisive in order to achieve the target set by the Swedish government of reducing the energy use by 20 percent by 2020. Consequently, the challenge of the building sector consists in reducing the energy use in the existing building stock but at the same time ensuring that the indoor environmental quality is improved and the cultural values are maintained.So far, there have been a few renovation projects which strongly have reduced the energy use and at the same time have taken into account the environmental aspects and the cultural values. The main reasons are that there have been few incentives and a lack of routines in order to steer efficiently a ?sustainable renovation?.The participants in a Nordic project on sustainable renovation thought that it would be a strong advantage to link the concept of sustainable renovation to the Miljöbyggnad certification system. Indeed it is trusted by the Swedish building and construction sectors and can provide sustainability targets in order to steer renovation processes.The objective of the master thesis is to show how the Miljöbyggnad certification system could be integrated in practice in the renovation process of Riksbyggen, an organization which administers housing associations (Bostadsrättsföreningar) and build houses.

The purpose of the study was to examine how teachers and children interpreted the project and understood its values. To this end, it was necessary to focus on four defining parameters which affect the investigation: structure of pre-school project work, content and delivery, the methods used by teachers during the project, which pedagogical documentation was used (and how), and how the project determined the approach, the curriculum goals and values. Using a qualitative approach, regular unsystematic observations were made over five days, during which three teachers, two pedagogues, two pre-school teachers, and one nanny from the same kindergarten were interviewed regarding children in three age groups: 1-2 years old, 3 years old, and 4-5 years old. The results of my investigation showed that the teachers were divided on how to apply the project as a working method. Children's active role in the pre-school project varied depending on the extent to which teachers adopted children perspective in everyday practice.

A numerical simulation case involving space plasma and the evolution of instabilities that generates very fast electrons, i.e. approximately at half of the speed of light, is used as a test bed for scientific visualisation techniques. A visualisation system was developed to provide interactive real-time animation and visualisation of the simulation results. The work focuses on two themes and the integration of them. The first theme is the storage and management of the large data sets produced.

This essay tries to explain how Swedish donor organisations are working with democracy in foreign aid. Three case studies of Sida, LO-TCO Biståndsnämnd and Rädda Barnen aims to give an overview of Swedish donor organisations, their work with democracy aid, evaluation and the problems with foreign aid. With Carothers theory of democracy aiding I analyse the success of Swedish democracy promotion, how civil society contributes to democratizaion and how democracy is measured.I find that Swedish democracy aid overall is successful due to a wider perspective of the term democracy. When democracy involves human rights it gives the donor a possibility to work with democracy promotion in a more extensive area and especially in the civil society. The essay stresses the importance of being subjective when evaluating and that one have to focus on the definition of democracy in each specific case.

This report will detail the participator view of partnering in Kvarteret Frodeparken. Kvarteret Frodeparken is a new construction project being jointly delivered by Skanska Sverige AB and Uppsalahem AB. The report will focus on the comparison between the participators view of partnering with an emphasis on common partnering goals. The report will also focus on the economical benefits, the time benefits and the social environment benefits you can find in partnering.The principals of partnering are; participants together make the common goals for the projects, make ice breaking activities to improve stakeholder engagement and working with an open economy to find the profitable choice for the project. With a combination of the three principals the team together decide the best solution for the project.

The aim of this essay is to explore the lived citizenship and its ideal. First, the form and expression of citizenship practice and ideal is explored through a qualitative interwiev study of ten citizens in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. The perception and expectations of the nature of citizenship, presented by the informants, is then compared to their citizen ideal, as well as to the ideal presented and promoted by the Swedish government. The point of departure is theory of democracy. The essay calls attention to an observed lack of empirical studies in the field of deliberative theory of democracy as well as studies that more broadly bring the theory down to empirical earth.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

This report gives an overview of applications of the Greenroads rating system whichin turn is an environmental review system for roads. The focus of this report isapplications during the construction phase, ie on solutions which adhere to theentrepreneur's area of responsibility as opposed to the designer's. The study was undertaken in cooperation with Skanska (a global contractor andFortune 500 company) which provided a project suitable for an exemplatory study ofGreenroads. Please note that the project in particular was not specifically designedwith Greenroads in mind. Therefore and because of that the site provided anexcellent opportunity to study effects of application contra non-application. The approach of this study was to first review the system, thereafter to performinterviews with key personel at the site in different roles as to receive different viewsof selected points of application. Selected possibilities of application are cathegorizedand presented with comments and suggestions for adoption. Lastly Greenroads is briefly compared to the rating system which today is the mostwidely used by Skanska, LEED.

Every year the Swedish government invests capital in different projects. In recent years the Swedish government has chosen to invest in design. The reason for this is that the government wants industry to use design as a competitive source. Two organizations, Svensk Form and Stiftelsen Svensk Indistridesign, have been assigned to improve industry and society?s under¬standing of design.

A positive aspect of globalization, from a western viewpoint, is the growing demand of advanced products in China and other developing countries. The construction industry is thriving in China and Swedish companies have taken part in various projects. However the situation have been difficult for some of the companies. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate how strategic and cultural factors affect the potential for Swedish companies to operate on the Chinese construction market. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Porter?s and Kotler?s theories about strategy, and Hofstede?s, Bjerke?s, and Daun?s research about different cultures.

Projects of all kinds generate documentation that needs to be organized and stored for future use. Well adapted tools, together with a unified modus operandi need to be available for both the project members and those having a more organizing role if an organization is to be effective.A study of the tools available to project members at Svenska Kraftnät have been performed along with an analysis of the guidelines for the tools' usage. The study has focused on the needs of the project members, not the organization as a whole, thus providing a bottom-up approach to the problem instead of the more organizational top-down approach. Interviews of around 20 project members, whose roles include project leaders, technical experts and documentation supervisors, have been conducted to get an idea of the practical problems that exists.All systems, except for a local network storage device, were found to at least meet Svenska Kraftnät's current demands. The usage guidelines, however, covers only the general process that a project should follow and lacks detailed information on a per system level in several areas.

This thesis investigates the Designated Operational Entities (DOEs) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. The DOEs serves as independent third-party auditors with the task of validating, verifying and certifying projects under the CDM. The majority of the DOEs are private entities. This is in line with the CDM objective of including the private sector in the climate change combat. The introduction of private entities in the role of DOEs can be questioned from a legitimacy point of view, but is corresponding to a development in international environmental governance where private actors are increasingly involved in governance arrangements.The thesis concludes the DOEs to be a form of public-private partnership and investigates the legitimacy of this form.

This report gives an overview of applications of the Greenroads rating system whichin turn is an environmental review system for roads. The focus of this report isapplications during the construction phase, ie on solutions which adhere to theentrepreneur's area of responsibility as opposed to the designer's. The study was undertaken in cooperation with Skanska (a global contractor andFortune 500 company) which provided a project suitable for an exemplatory study ofGreenroads. Please note that the project in particular was not specifically designedwith Greenroads in mind. Therefore and because of that the site provided anexcellent opportunity to study effects of application contra non-application. The approach of this study was to first review the system, thereafter to performinterviews with key personel at the site in different roles as to receive different viewsof selected points of application. Selected possibilities of application are cathegorizedand presented with comments and suggestions for adoption. Lastly Greenroads is briefly compared to the rating system which today is the mostwidely used by Skanska, LEED.

Studiens syfte är att ur ett symbolisk interaktionistiskt synsätt försöka förstå vad som motiverar vuxna amatörskådespelare, amatörsångare och amatörmusikalartister att delta i ideella konstnärliga projekt. Något annat som studien tar reda på är om konstutövandet och gruppen de deltar i har någon inverkan på individens identitet och identitetsskapande. Genom nio semistrukturerade intervjuer skapas en förståelse kring motivationen och identitetsskapandet. Detta förklaras sedan genom motivationsteorier samt teorier kring identiteten, där det visar sig att gemenskapen i gruppen, konstnärlig utmaning och utveckling, deltagandet i den konstnärliga processen, känslan av flow, själva utförandet och dess påverkan på välbefinnandet, viljan att uttrycka sig samt personlig utveckling var de huvudsakliga motivationsfaktorerna. Det visar sig även att både det konstnärliga utförandet och gruppen har en inverkan på individens identitet och identitetsskapande..

This is a technical report about cement stabilization in general and the stabilizationprocess during the construction of a warehouse in Halmstad, Sweden in particular and iswritten at the section for economy and technology at Halmstad University incollaboration with NCC Anläggning.NCC encountered variations in compression strength in the stabilized material on the firstwarehouse that they constructed for the company Biltema. In our report we used thestabilization process of the second warehouse for the same company as a reference todetermine what could be done to get a more homogeneous result for future projects.We also looked in to what testing method is the most suitable to determine the result ofthe stabilization.After interviews with people involved in the process and visits on the work site we havecome to the conclusion that the most probable cause to the variations in compressionstrength is segregation in the ballast material. This segregation can occur in severaldifferent occasions in the process such as during the production, transportation andhandling on the work site.Other causes for the variation can be improper compaction, overlapping stabilization insome places and different duration of hardening of the samples that are tested.The best way to do in situ test of the stabilized material is to do seismic investigations asthose are non-destructive tests in comparison to taking core samples and you can discoverany cracks or air bubbles in the material..