This essay explores the economical and social paradigms surrounding one of the most influentialNordic border dynastic noble families in the second half of the fifteenth century - the AxelssonTotts. How mercantile possibilities and opportunities offered to them, reflected on their politicalactions and social bands. The Axelsson brothers of the Tott Dynasty would become of one of themost powerful noble families within the Nordic Union between 1444 och 1487.Axel Pedersen (Tott) would through well chosen marriage alliances into the noble families of bothDenmark and Sweden, and with political prowess lay the foundation for one of the most dynamicfamily empires of the fifteenth century. In the year 1442, the Axelsson brothers swore loyalty toeach other; to protect and defend their mercantile and economical interests in Denmark andSweden. They would eventually control the trading routes in the border areas of the Union, and byexploiting the political chaos within the Union they would gain access and influence to the landtrading routes for export and import within the Union and the shipping export routes in the BalticSea allowing them access to the Russian market through Finland and Estonia.The island of Gotland, with its tactical and important geographical position in the Baltic Seabecame the key to the Nordic Union.

Actors deliberately change their preferences, contrary to the assumptions of rational decision models. This study shows why, and to some extent how. Preferences are necessarily ambiguous and unstable. Rationality is a regulating myth which has had a profound influence on Western conceptions of what an actor is.The aim of this study is to help individual actors understand the theoretical grounds of their actions. The analysis provides tools for examining decision methods and preference changes.

Energy consumption is at present a major political issue, and numerous projects that comprise many nations are currently in process to increase energy efficiency and bring down energy dependency. As a member state of the EU, Sweden now faces the challenge of implementing substantial energy-saving measures until the year 2016. One of these measures is the project ?Green Islands? financed by the EU that intend on creating sustainable islands in areas around the Baltic Sea. The Archipelago Foundation leads the project that concerns the Stockholm archipelago, where focus has been placed upon decreasing energy usage in businesses and services on Utö among other islands.

In order to increase the independence in everyday life of the elderly population, we have developed a lifting aid for loading in the private car trunk. Independence from outside assistance affects self-esteem in a positive direction and can help increase the quality of life for a large group of individuals. As people age and experience changes in performance, it is important that aids and support is available, particularly to reduce the experience of aging and it?s increasing physical limitations. The aim was to develop a function prototype characterized by simplicity, which facilitates loading of the private cartrunk.The project was conducted at the request of Autoadapt AB, which is one of the leadingactors in car adaptations for individuals with disablilities.

This thesis aims to present the essential background on how to perform climate changeimpact assessments, and to present the results from a climate impact assessment on waterbalance and nitrate leaching for an arable Swedish soil. The soil is a sandy soil in southwesternSweden, grown with spring cereals. This study is meant to be a benchmark example,and cannot be seen as a regional or national assessment for Sweden, rather as an approachto present and analyze the most important parts of these kinds of assessments.A dynamical simulation model (COUP, Jansson and Karlberg, 2004) was used for thisstudy. The model was parameterized and calibrated against data from an experimental site,located in Mellby in Hallands county, south western Sweden. Measurements were carriedout between 1st of April 1988 and 1st of April 1991.

Populism has been an integral part of the Finnish political system since the late 1950's. At that time the Agrarian Populist Party, better known as The Rural Party, emerged and thrived for decades until the party financially broke down in the 1990's. Reemerging on the political scene as the True Finns, the party is more radical and more influential than ever, gaining enough support to be the third largest party of the 2011 parliamentary election. Sweden, Finland?s neighbor, in contrast has a history with very little populist presence or radical right populist parties (RRP-parties).

The purpose of our report was to analyze the effects of youth drug abuse on the families concerned. Youth drug abuse made us wonder about the effects on the family as a whole, of those involved with drug abuse. To answer this question, we decided to employ an empiric study in the form of interviews with four teenagers, five parents and four drug counselors. Because our intent was to understand rather than try to measure the problems involved, we decided on a qualitative method. Our method built upon semi-structured interviews using open questions, where the interviewees were free to express their own thoughts and opinions.

Storm water management has become a more important matter as urban areas are expanding and natural areas are being exploited. As nature landscapes are being converted into hard surface areas storm water flow is affected both in terms of velocity and size. A flow increase can easily result in a flooding if the dimensions of the pipeline system are inadequate. Considering predicted upcoming climate changes, flooding?s may become more common in urban areas in the future.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country?s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service.

Den här rapporten grundar sig i problematiken med att kombinera TCP/IPv4 ochTCP/IPv6 med varandra. De två protokollen är inte kompatibla att skicka paket mellansig och bara delar av internet använder sig av, eller har stöd för, det nyare protokolletIPv6. På grund av att de publika IPv4-adresserna är slut i världen så måsteförr eller senare en fullständig migrering ske på internet. Fram till dess behövs dockmigreringsmetoder som kan hantera både de äldre och de nyare TCP/IP-protokolletsimultant.I rapporten kommer olika migreringsmetoder plockas fram där fokus ligger påkomplexitet, alltså tidsåtgång för implementering. Metoderna som presenteras utgören laboration där testpersoner har fått utföra simulerade migreringar med de olikateknikerna för att få fram tidsdata.

This study looks at how probation, client experiences, and criminal policy decisions affect recidivism in Sweden. Gaining a thorough grasp of how social, organizational, and political issues interact and impact the chances of rehabilitation and reintegration is the goal. Three research questions are addressed in the study: First, what are the causes of recidivism? Second, how is probation perceived by staff and clients in terms of control and support? Thirdly, what effects do political decisions have on probation services' operations and clients' chances for recovery?? A qualitative study was conducted with semi-structured interviews with twelve respondents, eight probation clients, three probation officers and one parliamentary politician. There were six themes that discussed the issue of recidivism from different perspectives, the collected data was analyzed through thematic content analysis.

Utvecklingen av BIM har senaste åren tagit fart och många länder, inklusive Sverige har bland annat påbörjat en process mot gemensam struktur inom byggsektorn genom att standardisera informationshantering och processer (Nilsson, 2013). Denna utveckling innebär nya möjligheter för aktörerna i byggprocessen men också problematik då denna intensiva IT-utveckling möter en till synes konservativ bransch (Statskontoret, 2009:6). Syftet med föreliggande examensarbete är att utforma en moderniserad arbetsmetod för konstruktören som integrerar dennes BIM-verktyg i projekteringsprocessen. En förståelse för hur konstruktörens arbete ser ut idag skall utrönas, samt vilka möjligheter och svårigheter som denna aktör upplever.Det som framkom i studien var att trots den intensiva utvecklingen av BIM som varit de senaste åren tillämpas fortfarande traditionella processer, då förståelse för en mer omfattande inledande arbetsinsats ännu inte riktigt finns. Ökade krav ställs också på konstruktörens byggtekniska kompetens då det är svårare att ?fuska? i objektbaserade modeller.

I Sverige finns idag en vedertagen metod för att bestämma dimensionerande flöde för dammanläggningar. De teoretiska beräkningarna av dimensionerande flöde för dammanläggningar tillhörande flödesdimensioneringsklass I baseras på HBV-modellen, en begreppsmässig hydrologisk beräkningsmodell som beskriver samspelet mellan de meteorologiska och hydrologiska förhållanden som råder inom ett avrinningsområde. Begreppsmässiga hydrologiska modeller baseras på vattenbalansen och används för att bestämma tillrinning till vattendrag, sjöar eller andra vattenförekomster. Vid hydrologisk modellering med begreppsmässiga modeller tas ingen explicit hänsyn till vattendragets geometri. Trånga sektioner i naturliga vattendrag kan hindra vattnets framfart och orsaka dämning uppströms den trånga sektionen.

Products and services have for a long time competed with their brands. For some time now, cities have begun to compete with each other to attract visitors and other stakeholders to come to their town. It is important that the citizens feel as they are a part of the message that the city sends out in its communication.Cities are today working actively with their brands, much like regular companies, in order to create the profile and image in order to be competitive against other cities and places. Cities and places are part of a dynamic process which includes both positive and negative events. These events might have an impact on the brands, and therefore it is a necessity to be able to react on these events to make the most of positive things and deal with the negative in a way that minimizes the effects on the brand.Citybranding as a research field is quite new.

By using steady-state measurements for predicting emissions under a dynamic drive cycle wouldsave a lot of time and money for the exhaust aftertreatment specialists at Volvo cars. The idea forthis thesis has been to investigate if statistical regression models can be used with good accuracy.Questions included are for example if common operating variables such as engine speed, air-fuelratio etc. is sufficient to predict engine-out emissions over the engine operating range with goodaccuracy. Focus was set on the modelling of warm engine, but also the more complex engineheat-up phase was investigated since it is a great contributor to total emissions. While NOxcouldnot be measured because of malfunctioning measurement equipment, only HC, CO andtemperature at inlet of first catalytic converter has been modelled.