This master thesis has been performed at the department of Machine Design at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. The thesis has been a part of a global development project in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology, Lund Faculty of Engineering and Stanford University. Corporate liaison and sponsor has been Immerse Global Inc. The project was also performed on sponsorship from the Product Innovation Engineering Program, PIEp. The thesis is a representation of some of the Contributions made by the authors.The lack of clean drinking water is one of the key issues facing the world today.

Schyman?s legs in Let?s Dance as a communication strategy- a case study of ?Feministiskt initiativ? in the election campaign 2010.(Schymans ben i Let?s Dance som kommunikationsstrategi, en fallstudie om Feministiskt initiativ i valkampanjen 2010).Author: Joanna Morell, Tutor: Ann-Marie Morhed2009 was the first time where Swedish political parties were entitled to have TV- commercials, another sign of political communication taking one step closer to the strategic marketing communication. A type of communication that also is expensive.The Swedish political party Feministiskt initiativ (Fi) have existed since 2005 and is not yet a part of the Swedish parliament. They have not been entitled to the economic support that is given to Swedish parties with more than 2,5 percent of the votes in the last two elections. As a result Fi is completely dependent on economic Contributions.

Background: In newspaper articles, we can nowadays read headlines as"Stop the robbing!"and"They pay extra tax through rent". A column in Göteborgsposten describes enormous amounts of money, pouring between municipal companies. Numerous of local newspapers have started to pay attention to their municipal companies and the transfer of profits from municipal housing enterprises and electric power companies. What are upsetting these journalists then? Both Hyresgästföreningen (The Swedish tenants? association) and Boverket (The Swedish National Housing Board) indicate that the fiscal purpose of transactions within the group no longer is primary for municipalities.

The aim of this essay was to describe the power elite of the Swedish town Karlshamn, and its influences on the local political process before the realization of the narrow-gauge railway Karlshamn-Wislanda-Jernväg. During the mid 19th century, a revolutionary period began in the Swedish pre-industrial epoch. The political and institutional regulatory frameworks were disassembled and restructured, away from protectionism and centrally controlled administration, for the benefit of free trade, local self-government and liberalism. The changes were carried through during times marked by a drastic increasing native population and upcoming demands for adjustments to meet the growth of the industrial-, trade- and labour markets. An essential industrial development factor was the building of the national railway network, which started after some important decisions in the Swedish Riksdag during the 1850´s.

As a result of increased energy prices more and more energy-efficient homes are coveted. An energy-efficient alternative is passive houses, which is characterized by an extremely well insulated building envelope that recovers the heat without the use of radiators or under floor heating. But a passive house requires a higher investment cost than a conventional building project, since it will require more construction materials, training of construction workers, greater land area, and long construction period. But the lower operating cost expects to pay back the higher cost of investment. We therefore question how profitable a passive house is in relation to houses built according to modern conventional building techniques.The aim of our study is to investigate the viability of passive houses compared to convent­ional houses.

The recent accounting scandals in large companies in both USA and Europe, such as Enron and Scandia, have led to a huge debate about the quality of financial reports approved by auditors who, at the same time, offer consultancy service to their audit clients. Many researchers and experts argued that there is a role conflict when an auditor offers consultancy service to audit clients. They argue that the main duty of an auditor is to verify the truthfulness of the company's financial statements. Giving consultancy service to the audit clients will impair the auditor's role to examine the company's books independently because of the economic bond between auditors and audit clients.As a result of the Enron scandal, the legislators in the USA have made restrictions to how auditors provide non-audit service to audit clients. However, the legislators in Sweden, unlike the US, did not choose to introduce such restrictions.

As a result of increased energy prices more and more energy-efficient homes are coveted. An energy-efficient alternative is passive houses, which is characterized by an extremely well insulated building envelope that recovers the heat without the use of radiators or under floor heating. But a passive house requires a higher investment cost than a conventional building project, since it will require more construction materials, training of construction workers, greater land area, and long construction period. But the lower operating cost expects to pay back the higher cost of investment. We therefore question how profitable a passive house is in relation to houses built according to modern conventional building techniques.The aim of our study is to investigate the viability of passive houses compared to convent­ional houses.

?Ecosystem services are the ecosystems direct and indirect Contributions of ecosystems to human well-being.? In order to reach the generation target and the environmental objectives it is important to increase the awareness of biodiversity and ecosystem services and it?s importance to human welfare and simultaneously highlighting the value of ecosystem services. The value of ecosystem services should be integrated into economic standpoints, political considerations and other decisions in the society. In today?s society there is a problem concerning that the value of ecosystem services are not considered in economic terms, which can result in solutions that are unfavorable for our welfare (Ministry of Environment, 2012).

The Saami, a Nordic indigenous people scattered over four countries, has for centuries been regarded as parts of the national populations of the countries in which they live. During the 19th century saami demands for greater influence resulted en several changes, among them the founding of a Swedish Saami Council in 1993. The council became a popularly elected, representative institution with an agenda of its own, but also a public authority answerable to the government. The decision to attribute the council this twofold role was unusual and, from a certain point of view, even controversial: it makes it difficult to determine the location of the power to act in saami-related issues and the legitimacy to do so.This essay is about how the twofold role came into existence, what it leads to and how the seemingly contradictive duality is managed. It has an institutional approach with theories concerning institutions and etnicity as well as institutional change and handling of complicated and ambiguous demands.

Nyligen publicerades ett skatteupplägg, det så kallade bankupplägget, vilket innebär att ägare till kvalificerade aktier i fåmansföretag tar ett omfattande lån av en bank och tillskjuter motsvarande belopp till sitt företag som ett ovillkorat aktieägartillskott. Det ovillkorade aktieägartillskottet ökar omkostnadsbeloppet på de kvalificerade aktierna, vilket innebär att även gränsbeloppet höjs. Ett högt gränsbelopp är positivt ur fåmansföretagsägarens synvinkel eftersom utdelning och kapitalvinst upp till gränsbeloppet beskattas i inkomstlaget kapital medens överskjutande del beskattas i inkomstlaget tjänst. Kapitalvinstbeskattningen är i regel lindigare vilket innebär att den skattskyldige uppnår en skatteförmån genom erhållandet av det högre gränsbeloppet. Efter att ha företagit utdelning av allt fritt eget kapital, exklusive aktieägartillskottet likvideras företaget och allt insatt kapital utbetalas till ägaren.

An Internet application, VEDAIR, for estimation of air quality in regions with small-scale combustion of bio fuel has been developed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute with financing from Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The model contains user interface and a coupled model concept where concentrations of atmospheric pollutions are calculated for regional, urban and local Contributions. In this report the model is described and a first study of air quality considering PM10 (particles with a diameter less than 10 µm) in two Swedish municipalities, Vänersborg and Gnosjö, is introduced.According to the result, there are areas with poor air quality even in smaller Swedish municipalities, mostly due to high emission from buildings with older wood heating furnace without hydraulic accumulator.In Vänersborg three areas were analysed in VEDAIR for the year 2003: Vargön, Mariedal and the downtown district. In the whole municipality the upper evaluation threshold for PM10, which is defined as 14 µg/m3 for annual average, was exceeded due to background contribution of particles. In all areas, however, the concentrations of PM10 were less than the environmental quality norms.

Since the early 1940s in Sweden, subsidies have been a recurring feature in housing politics.Throughout history, these have been used as a management measure to control theconstruction of housing and to promote the Swedish welfare state. The political parties aretoday disagreeing on how much responsibility the state should carry for citizens housing. Tosolve the conflict, the dwelling has to be defined. Is the dwelling to be considered a socialright, like education and healthcare or is the dwelling to be considered a product for the freemarket, driven by supply and demand?The positive population growth in Stockholm has lead to an increased demand for dwellings.The supply of dwellings has not been growing at the same rate, which has implied higherhousing prices and longer wait for rented apartments.

The purpose of this thesis is to explain why states obtain nuclear weapons and the role variousactors and interests play in the making of states´ nuclear policies. The main questions are asfollows: (1) What big theories exist concerning states obtaining nuclear weapon and nucleararmament in International Relations and what relevance do they have of the post cold-war period?,(2) What is the meaning of the perspective of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC)?, and (3)Arethere empirical studies which supports the existence of a MIC in the United States?The focus lies on actors and driving forces that are internal to states and it is also important toinvestigate if the theories have relevance for the post 9/11-era. The study uses the method ofqualitative literature-study with some quantitative segments. It is claimed that states might beinterested in justifying their behaviour in a morally appealing way and that real reasons may behidden.

EU har utropat år 2012 som Europaåret för aktivt åldrande och solidaritet mellan generationerna. Under det här året kommer fokusering ske mot de äldre generationerna i vårt samhälle. Detta kommer man att göra i Sverige genom att belysa och ta upp frågor om hur samhället går att anpassa för de äldre. I Sverige finns det en växande grupp äldre och målet är att se till att dessa människor ska kunna känna sig säkra och självständiga. Det är viktigt för människor att känna att de är viktiga och att de bidrar till samhället.Statistik visar att (De Courcy, 2011) äldre föredrar att bo kvar i sina gamla bostäder.

During the summer of 2005 a number of steer producers in Skåne, Sweden, found that their animals graded less favourable according to the EUROP carcass grading system when slaughtered, than ordinary. The aim with this project was to determine factors that affects the production result in steer production and to find the reason to the lower classification. The project was initiated by Anita Persson, LRF, Skåne and was preformed with supervision from Ingemar Olsson, SLU, and Jens Fjelkner, Skånesemin. Ten producers of dairy steers located in Skåne was chosen for this study. The producers were interviewed to collect information about their steer production with respect to their planning and results.