Telemedicine is the use of information and communication technology to provide clinical health care at a distance. This approach is usually adopted to bridge the distance in rural settings, but it is also a method to meet demographical and economical challenges. Västerbotten, a sparsely populated county with an ageing population, is in leading edge when it comes to telemedicine. The purpose of this report was to examine the diffusion and the inventory of telemedicine in the county council of Västerbotten from a geographical perspective. To gain a deeper understanding of diffusion and inventory of telemedicine, my purpose was also to examine these processes from an international and national perspective.

This thesis discusses South Scandinavian cup marks in general, and cup marks in Kronobergs County in particular. The question is whether the cup mark phenomena can be viewed as an ordinary family-based cult for a kind of everyday use, or more likely as a community passage ritual. The thesis also suggests that cup marks were made by ritual participants in, or in the process of trying to reach, an altered state of consciousness..

The aim of this study was to investigate and analyze what is required for the environmental quality objective Good built environment to be fulfilled by 2020 in the Swedish county Jämtland. The focus of the study was to gain an understanding of the work that the local government does and further investigate the problems that the officials face with implement these questions in themunicipal planning.The study is based on semi structured interviews with officials in the municipalities of Jämtland county. General plan and programs for the municipality have been reviewed, based on how the plans highlights these issues linked to sustainability and Good built environment.The results of the study show that there are major problems with the formulations of the environmental quality goal in itself and its specifications. The environmental quality goal is formulated to suit the entire Sweden. But as it turns out in the analysis it does not work on the basis of the conditions inJämtland with sparsely populated areas and scattered dwellings.

GIS on the Internet is a rather new phenomenon, which has evolved from the need ofdistributed geographical data. It is also a powerful tool for presenting information on theInternet. This master thesis aim to create a web based GIS application with information onlime spreading and the situation concerning acidification in the county of Kronoberg, Sweden.The web based GIS application will be used by the county administrations in Kronoberg toinform the public and the municipal authorities of current counteracting acidification activity.This report includes documentation on acidifying processes and liming activities, which arepublicised together with the web based GIS application. The web based GIS application wascreated with ArcIMS, a new program in the ESRI family of GIS programs. The programincludes a guided structure, to development of everything from a map to a complete GISapplication, including mapservice and websites.

AbstractDuring the year 2005, a more and newer models of trade as shopping malls has been established in Värmland. Trough media (Wermlands the newspaper, Tvärsnytt) we have been able to follow the development of trade establishments as happened in the county, for example the establishment of Olav Thons Shopping center in Töcksfors. The aim and issues as then arisen in this study is part's why economic activities as shopping center increases precisely in Värmland, part's factors that governs the premise ice ring of a shopping center, were Töcksfors shopping center is functioned as an example, part's if shopping centers is a part of Värmland's new tourist activity? Through depth interviews with the region manager Urban Svanberg on Swedish business communities, the centre manager Helene Rödseth on Töcksfors shopping centre and the county tourist manager Monica Karlsson on Värmland's tourist council, some cultural geographic premise ice teories has been showed. For example this study has shown that trade in Värmland has been given birth to new trades in the county..

The analysis of regional development and the formation of regional policy have experienced an increasing importance in Europe and in Sweden during the last decades. There is a widespread assumption that the increasing significance of regions is due to the diminishing role of the nationstate in the era of globalization. This essay suggests that there is a hegemonic discourse, heavily relying on the assumptions of New Regionalism, when addressing regional building. Sometimes described as an ideology, New Regionalism, which is derived from research of successful regions, is based on the assumption that regional competitiveness and autonomy creates economic growth. The Committee on Public Sector Responsibilities (Ansvarskommittén) suggests that Sweden requires new regional structure, due to the increasing expenditures facing the welfare state.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and County councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

In Sweden everyone has the possibility to report deficiencies in animal welfare they encounter. They report this to the county administration in their county and such a report is called a complaint case. Complaint cases are normally handled with animal welfare inspections, carried out by animal welfare inspectors from the county administration in the county where the animal keeper with reported deficiencies lives. The county administrations in Sweden receive a lot of complaint cases that differ in grade of how severe the deficiency is. The complaint cases are given priority by how severe the deficiency seems to be.

This paper deals whit the problems concerning social organisation in the county of Dalarna in middle Sweden during the Middle Ages 1050- 1528. This paper also deals whit the every day ife in Dalarna during the same period. In the paper archaeology, ethnology, history and osteology is used in order to create a so accurate as possibly picture of every day life at the farm, the villa and the keep. Each environment is compared to each other in order to try to see the social structure of the county. The geographic frame for the paper is the part of Sweden above the border zone of Limes Norrlandicus, or lower Norrland.The results presented in the paper shows that Dalarna most probably had a flat social organisation in the meaning that the every day life and its artefacts was much the same in all the environments.

The purpose of this study is to determine if and how municipal consultative entities through influence may affect the legitimacy of the Swedish democratic model. The study aims to do this through analysing the opportunities for influence present with the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality, to determine how the councils may affect political participation and the role of elected representatives. To do so, the study asks the following primary research question:"What requisites for influence are present for participants of municipal consultative entities, as found for the representatives of the youth and the retired within the framework of their participation in the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality?"The study answers this research question by dividing it into one question of policy and one question of democratic perspective, and investigating these matters through nine snowballing interviews with the decision makers, organisational actors and participants of the councils. The information from the interviews is then analysed per council through a framework of democracy theory, policy process theory and organisation theory.

This paper examines how teachers and librarians are helping children and young people withdyslexia/reading and writing difficulties. The examination has taken place in a small municipalityin Skaraborg County. Seven teachers in the municipal schools and the chief librarian inthe municipal library have been interviewed as well as an advising county librarian.In the municipal schools the pupils have access to literature in easy language and computerswith programs training reading, writing and spelling. In some schools there are textbooks ontape too. In the municipal library and in the county library disabled readers can loan literatureon tape and literature in easy language.The conclusion of the examination is that children and young people with dyslexia/readingand writing difficulties need all sorts of aids in reading and writing.

AbstractDuring the last decade the public sector has been influenced by new ways of measuring performance and governing, taking inspiration from the private sector. The Swedish municipal community Vellinge has since 2004 adopted ?The Balanced Scorecard? by Kaplan & Norton, measuring not only the financial parts but also other, important factors. The adoption took place since the Swedish government applied new demands on County councils and municipal communities through ?God ekonomisk hushållning?.

This thesis examines the problems related to IT in the Swedish healthcare system, specifically the drug searching part of the electronic healthcare systems used in Sweden. The question formulation is divided into two questions: What parameters and functions are of greatest importance when performing a search on drugs, and how should these be presented in a graphical user interface? Thus the purpose is to answer these questions through developing a design concept, in the form of a prototype, which describes how a drug search can be carried out.The entry point is a central quality checked drug database that is managed and owned by Swedish County councils and regions. The problem is attacked through user-centered methods where interviews of physicians and developers, in conjunction with observations, are used to give an overview of the problem area as well as to specify a requirements specification for the prototype that this thesis aims to develop. The thesis result is a requirements specification in combination with a prototype that exemplifies how drug searching can be performed, the prototype is based the requirements gathered from the interviews with the user group of physicians..

ästerbottens färgrika stenskatter - Spatiala presentationer och analyser av skifferfynd i Västerbottens län(The colorful stone treasures of Västerbotten ? Spatial presentations and analysis of slate artefacts in Västerbotten County)This essay pertains to the spatial distributions and analysis of slate artefacts in Västerbotten County, Sweden. The authors aim is to give answers the issues of what the distribution patterns of slate artefacts can tell us about the prehistoric humans in this area. By using GIS software and geospatial analysis the author strengthens the theories about separate interior and coastal economies, as well as the theory that the main share of production of slate artifacts are linked in the interior of the County, the author also refers to earlier research, both domestic and international. The theories of non-pragmatic preferences by the late Mesolithic and Neolithic people for red colored slate are also added to.

The aim with this independent degree project of master thesis is to find what the user opinions of the intranet in a county council is. The paper seeks how the question about how the culture in the organisation was affected by the use of the intranet. An important part is to explore the expectations and acceptance of the intranet and get a picture of which functions and services support day-to-day work with good quality. One goal is to find out how the intranet users feel that the communication, information and usability can be developed.The focus group interview is a qualitative method that has been applied for gathering data from the respondents, who participate in the investigation from the county council. The used method is unstructured focus groups containing the three dominating categories of staff in the county council.