What impact and effects are created by the placement of an international ranking? Could it be that a top rank is detrimental to an entire country's efforts to fight corruption?This bachelor thesis in political science is about Swedish corruption. In essence, so questioning the Transparency International's indexed rankings that placed Sweden in third place. Issues concern since if the third placement has created nonchalance and a careless mentality in Swedish government and in particular in the municipal operations. Research results show that Transparency International's rankings have low validity and low reliability and that the government is not acting sufficiently to prevent and fight corruption.

The importance of daylight for humans has been known for a rather long time. Applying this knowledge in the science of urban planning is not very common, at least not in Stockholm, Sweden. Living in a country far from the equator with great differences between daylight and darkness during the year, daylight gets even more important for our wellbeing. This study aims to highlight the subject of daylight planning and contribute to the discussion about how to include daylight in the process of urban planning. By critically observing a new built district in Stockholm and applying guidelines of how to use daylight planning, this paper shows how important it is to include daylight planning early in the process.

This paper concerns the flagging out of merchant navy vessels and its consequenses. Flaggingout is method used by ship owners in order to gain advantages. Under a different flag, thevessel's legal residence become the subject of another country´s laws. Toward the end of thefirst decade of the 20th century ferry -and passangervessels trading in the Baltic Sea wereflagged out from Åland to the flag of Sweden. Flagging out to Sweden is not common but thespecific circumstances for this trade has made the Swedish ship's register interesting for shipowners.

The purpose of this thesis is to test whether firms have target capital structure, and if so with what speed they adjust toward this target. Findings that support this purpose are also in line with the trade off theory. One of the key elements of this thesis is the method used, which successfully enables fulfilling the purpose. The panel data method captures the data characteristics of the cross sectional and time series dimension. By using this approach the dynamic effects of capital structure can be studied, thus if there actually is an adjustment towards a target the speed can be estimated.

This thesis examines the presence of threats and violence directed towards animal welfare inspectors/ officers. The main tool is a survey regarding threats and violence directed at animal welfare inspectors/officers. The questionnaire was distributed to animal welfare inspectors/ officers who worked on 15 of the country's 21 provincial governments. The response rate of the survey was 68.9 percent. The main conclusion of the study is that threats and violence directed at animal welfare inspectors/ officers are common.

Background: The situation for Swedish agricultural production today is characterized by an increased competition, particularly after the country joined the European Union. Swedish agricultural production laws guarantee safe, high quality foodstuffs. However, due to these strict laws, Swedish farmers face higher production costs than their competitors. Meanwhile, cheaper imported goods compete freely on the Swedish market. Swedish agricultural production must find new ways to survive in the increasing competition.

This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

In this thesis we compare how different strategies in choosing attribute values affects junk mail filtering. We used two different variants of a naïve Bayesian junk mail filter. The first variant classified an e-mail by comparing it to a feature vector containing all attribute values that were found in junk mails in the part of the e-mail collection we used for training the filter. The second variant compared an e-mail to a feature vector that consisted of the attributes that was found in ten or more junk mails in the part of the e-mail collection we used for training the filter. We used an e-mail collection that consisted of 300 e-mails, 210 of these were junk mails and 90 were legitimate e-mails.

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using different benchmarking models to measure and compare the efficiency of Swedish gas distributors. It also discusses to which extent the results of a benchmarking study should influence the revenue-cap which will be implemented in the gas distribution sector in Sweden from year 2011. The discussion is based on arguments from both theory and practical applications of benchmarking. The results suggest that benchmarking Swedish gas distributors against distributors in another country using a parametric model is most favorable, but the reliability will be increased if non-parametric models are used also. Partial and total productivity measures could be used to confirm results of other benchmarking analyses.

SammanfattningSyfte:Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om måttlig fysisk aktivitet hade en akut, mätbar påverkan på koncentrationsförmågan. Vidare var syftet att undersöka om vistelse i naturen/och eller bullrig trafikmiljö hade någon ytterligare/särskild påverkan. Slutligen fanns ett syfte att undersöka om det fanns ett samband mellan deltagarens uppfattning av aktuell koncentrationsförmåga och testresultat.Frågeställningar:? Ökar måttlig fysisk aktivitet i trettio minuter den kognitiva förmågan med avseende på logik och matematisk problemlösning?? Ökar måttlig fysisk aktivitet i trettio minuter förmågan till uppmärksamhet med avseende på selektivitet och vakenhetsgrad?? Ger promenad i skogsmiljö ytterligare eller annan effekt jämfört med promenad i stadsmiljö?? Finns det ett samband mellan bra resultat på logik/matematiktestet och deltagarens upplevda koncentrationsförmåga?Metod:Urvalet bestod av kvinnor och män i åldern 22 till 49 år. 14 kvinnor och 6 män deltog.

The purpose of this essay has been to investigate how newly arrived asylum seekers experience their first month in Sweden. The focus has been on the introduction week that is given within the first month of their arrival, although the study aims to treat the reception that is given in general. This is important because the refugees are in a sensitive state, leaving their country for different reasons, and coming to a new place wich they know nothing or little about. The questions at issue has been the following; * What are the refugees´ views of the information and the treatment they´ve been given during their first month in Sweden? * Which are the possible reasons for the refugees experiencing the reception the way they do? The methods I´ve used have been observation studies during the introduction week, plus interviews with participants of this introduction.

My thesis was based on studying what really happens when Swedes move their beloved kitchen outdoors.?What kind of problems andpossibilities appears in this enviroment? First, I unbiassed examined the traditional kitchen in general to get a better view of how an outdoorkitchen could function in a country that have diffrent seasons. I intervjued an interior designer specialized in kitchenplanning to get abetter view. One thing that came up was that the experince of beeing outdoor sometimes puts functionality aside. I located different needs inthe outdoor kitchen enviroment and decided to work futher with one of them, outdoor lightning.The result became a 3d digital model of an outdoor lamp that creates both functionallight and moodlight.

In this thesis, I discuss the impact Swedish national culture may have on Swedish diplomats. This is a qualitative study and I have used theories from studies of international negotiations to compare the oppositional results of those scientists with my interview material. With the help of my interview material from seven Swedish diplomats and five foreign diplomats I have compared their perceptions of Swedish culture, Swedish diplomats and their thoughts about the existence of an international diplomatic culture with well known sceientists of international negotiations. My main question is whether there is an international diplomatic subculture, without any national impact, or not. The mission is to base the thesis with earlier science and then compare and contrast with my interview material.

Japan is the first industrialized country that is experiencing the threat of a rapidly declining and aging population. This has shifted the focus and the limelight is now on the matter that for a long time has been ignored. That is, the Japanese women?s situation in the society. This thesis seeks to point out the relevance of gender in the construction of leadership in order to get a deeper understanding of the Japanese women?s situation today.