The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the Correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

Issues related to multilingualism and its importance to each individual and the whole society are the subject of today?s school debate. The mere fact that the aspects of multilingualism are discussed actively not only in a school environment but even in the mass media and other communities proves that multilingualism is an important and complex phenomenon in our lives.The subject that I have chosen to study into is about the importance of multilingualism for minority individuals and the conditions for their multilingualism. The aim of this research is to investigate the importance of multilingualism for identity formation among several Russian-speaking young people who were born and raised in Estonia, as well as to try to understand the factors that were relevant to these young people's multilingualism and their view on it. Six young people aged 16-19 were considered in this study.

Performance of an intersection affects the total travel time in a traffic network. An intersection with good performance can easily be described by its contribution to lower travel time than in a comparable intersection. The travel time is of importance in the cost calculations when a specific intersection is to be chosen and designed. It is important to be able to make correct and precise performance calculations so that the cost calculations will not be incorrect. For that purpose the software Capcal, which is a traffic model for intersection analysis on performance, is used in Sweden.

Records of P III fractures from 235 horses, 71 of them were standardbreds, treated at 3 major Swedish equine hospitals (Strömsholm, SLU and Mälaren hästklinik) between 1994 and 2004 were evaluated for information such as the patients age, sex, breed, type of fracture, affected leg, time and place of the injury, treatment and, if possible, result of treatment. For the standardbreds, result of treatment was also followed up through written Correspondence with owners and by screening AB Trav och Galopp racing-results. Moreover, results of horses with type II and III-fractures treated with rest and therapeutic shooing only were compared to horses in which lag screw fixation were added to achieve interfragmental compression. Compared to the rest of the Swedish horse population, P III fractures were slightly more common among standardbred horses. The mean age of the affected standardbred was 5,8 years, compared to 7,9 years in the rest of the horse-population. Most horses injured themselves in the paddock.

The Gift 2.0 - A Museological Study of donations of Objects and its Underlying Motives, is a study in order to explain why people choose to donate items for museums, rather than any other alternative.The empirical study consists of qualitative, semi-structured research-interviews conducted with seven selected curators from various museums, with extensive experience of the subject acquisition. I have chosen to only examine Swedish cultural-historical museums. The hypothesis that I assumed was first and foremost that the heritage sphere is what Pierre Bourdieu calls a field. The reason that people would donate objects to museums, is that the donation itself brings cultural capital to the donor, from people with the same habitus. Since I felt that Bourdieus theory of field, capital and habitus could not explain all the reason why people donate items to museum, my second hypotheses was that certain objects are what Annette Weiner called inalienable possessions, objects that at any cost may not be sold or bartered away.

Sweden had in the early 1930's the lowest birth rate in the world. Population Commission which was established in 1935 concluded that one of the biggest social problems was the working women?s heavy workload. To deal with the low birth rate reforms and programs were founded both in order to help the women but also in order to support the inadequate motherhood. Government grants were set up to start the so-called vacation home for housewives where the government?s visions of the vacation homes were active rest and recreation.     Based on the Leisure Inquiry report regarding vacation homes for housewives - the purpose of this paper is to examine how the government visions regarding vacation homes for housewives were practiced and how the future of prevailing gender contract affected the holiday home.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att berika den befintliga teorin om verksamhetsstyrning inom offentlig sektor med fokusering på överensstämmelsen mellan mål och resurser i den offentliga hierarkin. Undersökningen är av en fallstudiekaraktär där forskningsprocessen bestått av ett antal personintervjuer. Dessutom har vi samlat in en del sekundär data som var nödvändig för att slutföra studien. Vi har valt att utgå från teorier som behandlarverksamhetsstyrning med tillhörande komponenter Empirin består av insamlat material från intervjuer som ägde rum på Malmö Stadskontor, två stadsförvaltningar samt två grundskolor i respektive stadsförvaltning inom Malmö Stad. Våra slutsatser påpekar att det finns klara avvikelser mellan mål och resurser inom de studerade enheterna.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to do a brand survey of Metro in Karlstad. The study will originate from the terms ?brand identity? and ?brand associations?, where the brand identity is the organization?s desired view of the brand, and the brand associations define the associations held by the consumers.Issues: What is Metro?s brand identity? What are the brand associsations of Metro in Karlstad? How well do the brand identity and the brand associations correspond?Theoretical framework: The study is done from the perspective of media and communication studies, where the theoretical terms are defined from literature regarding brands.Method: The study is carried out using a qualitative document analysis, interviews, and a quantitative survey. The document analysis was made on Metro?s own documents regarding values and target audience.

This study deals with the Adventure Comic Prince Valiant, written and designed by the Canadian artist Harold R. Foster. Focus is on the first two years of publication 1937-1938, where the hero is pictured in his Adolescence. This gives the title of the study: Youth. Earlier writings in the USA on this topic, have concentrated on the artist and less on analyses of the comic itself.

Objective: The aim of the study is to describe pupils' understanding of the mathematical concept of function. How do pupils define the concept of function? What images of the concept of function evoke when they solve tasks, which involve identifying and constructing functions?Theory: A student's thinking about a mathematical concept depends on more than just the formal definition of the concept; therefore Tall and Vinner introduce the term concept image to describe the role cognitive structures play when students learn about concepts. The cognitive structure includes all mental images, associated properties and processes that an individual associates with a given concept. According to Sfard, an individual's understanding of mathematical concepts may have different character: an operational conception, where a concept is conceived as a process and a structural conception, where the given concept is conceived as an object, that is, as a whole.Method: 16 pupils at the Science Program at two different upper secondary schools inSweden answered a questionnaire on the mathematical concept of function.

Mosquitoes are found in extremely large numbers in the lower parts of the River Dalälven. In the year 2000 the mosquito nuisance was especially high, resulting in foundation of the Biological mosquito control project. Since 2001 mosquito larvae are controlled by using a biological pesticide BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis ssp israelensis). The mosquito fauna in the area is dominated by flood water mosquitoes, a group of mosquitoes that are very aggressive and form new generations of mosquitoes during every single flooding event during the summer. To be able to efficiently control the mosquitoes it is essential to know the extension and locality of the flooding.

The aim of this study is to investigate which communication strategies and channels the mu- nicipal company Falu Energi & Vatten should use in order to become more efficient in com- municating with citizens between 18 to 29 years old. The company is owned by the munici- pality of Falun and manages community services in electricity, district heating, fresh water, sewerage, metropolitan area network and waste disposal. The following theories have been used in the study: convergence culture, digital natives, information overload, communication strategies and uses & gratifications theory. The methods used in the study are 4 focus group interviews and one informant interview. The members of the focus groups where within the age range 18-29 years and lived in the city of Falun.

Extensive planting of the tree species lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) during the 1970s and 80s has resulted in large areas now being available for commercial thinning. However, the varying quality of the stands creates a problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate, at the Torsby district of the Stora Enso forest company, how well the present computer records of the stands correspond to reality and determine which stands are, from a qualitative perspective, suited for timber production. Finding variables that indicate better stands would give Stora Enso the possibility of selecting qualitative stands which are more profitable to thin. The study included 32 stands containing at least 70 % Pinus contorta.

Med en explorativ ansats syftar denna studie till att kartlägga samband och jämföra grupperingar bland klienter som fått genomföra en ASI-intervju hos Kriminalvården. Studien bygger på 2 317 intervjuer med fokus på missbruksproblematik, gjorda under perioden 2008-2010. Vi illustrerar grafiskt intressanta samband och tittar även på hur klienternas hjälpbehov varierar inom olika livsområden.Ytterligare en aspekt av studien är att utvärdera datamaterialets kvalitet samt att studera eventuellt bortfall för de olika variablerna. Materialet är av relativt god kvalitet och förekomst av respondenters vägran är inte tillräckligt omfattande för att påverka analyser och slutsatser. De felaktigheter som kunde konstateras härhör nästan uteslutande från tillvägagångssätt vid inmatning av data i systemet.

The aim of this study is to investigate which communication strategies and channels the mu- nicipal company Falu Energi & Vatten should use in order to become more efficient in com- municating with citizens between 18 to 29 years old. The company is owned by the munici- pality of Falun and manages community services in electricity, district heating, fresh water, sewerage, metropolitan area network and waste disposal. The following theories have been used in the study: convergence culture, digital natives, information overload, communication strategies and uses & gratifications theory. The methods used in the study are 4 focus group interviews and one informant interview. The members of the focus groups where within the age range 18-29 years and lived in the city of Falun.