The purpose of this study is to make a close and critical scrutiny of the EU Lisbon Strategy and the assumption of `sustainable growth´. A basic question is to clarify what is meant by `sustainability´ in the economic and the environmental dimension respectively, and also, to analyse the meaning of `sustainable growth´. Secondly, I try to investigate the relationship between the economical and environmental dimensions of the strategy. Are the goals of the dimensions compatible and mutually supporting or are they conflicting? By illuminating these issues the study moves towards a final set of questions: What are the arguments that encourage or counteract the Lisbon assumption of `sustainable growth´? Is the European Union approaching `sustainable growth´ looking at different economical and ecological indicators? What are the prospects for the Lisbon Strategy as a way towards global `sustainable development´?.

This report is the result of a diploma work made at IMT at US in Linköping. The purpose of this piece of work is to investigate the possibility to design a general program for data-acquisition using LabVIEW, suiting different hardwares and connections. Great importance has been attached to communication with serialport, using bluetooth, because different wireless PPG-instruments has been developed parallel to this project. These PPG-circuits uses this type of serialcommunication. Communication with USB, GPIB and analog connection has also been examined and analog communication has been tested practically.

The focus of this thesis is the conception of work and the relation between work, economic growth and welfare in today?s Sweden in the editorial of Dagens Nyheter (DN), which is the main morning paper in Sweden.As the theoretical foundation of this thesis is social constructionism and the method being used is critical discourse analysis, the language is considered as an important source for the construction of value and meaning of work. In that context it is important to investigate how DN, by certain ways of representing reality, preserves a certain view of the human being, the society and the economy. Which ideological ideas underlie the conception of work that emerges in DN? What social consequences will these ideas have?The thesis discusses the ?truths? that the editorialists mediate concerning for example the view of the human being as guided by rational choice and the view of economic growth as the main goal for social life.One of the conclusions is that DN considers work as a means for economic growth as economic growth is regarded fundamental for the survival of the welfare state..

Med dagens låga ränta lånar privatpersoner mer än någonsin för att finansiera sina bostadsköp. Denna uppsats behandlar ränterisken en privatperson utsätter sig för vid bostadsköp då denne skall ta lån med fast ränta. Vanligtvis brukar det ta tre månader (90 dagar) från det att köpekontrakt skrivits på till att köpet genomförts. Genom att anta att ränteförändringarna är lognormalfördelade har jag kommit fram till att tvåårs och femårs räntan inte stiger betydande under 90 dagar. Slutsatsen jag dragit är att ränterisken är låg med dagens låga ränta..

Denna studie behandlar EU:s fjäderfänäring och undersöker effekterna av den nya policyn som huvudsakligen består av ett minskat exportstöd. Uppsatsen studerar effekterna på produktion och export. De förväntade effekterna vid ett avskaffande av exportstöd är att både produktion och export ska minska. Denna studie visar, genom att undersöka förändringarna i producerad och exporterad kvantitet från och med 1995 då den nya poliyn började gälla, att i detta fall påverkar andra faktorer produktion och export mer än det minskade exportstödet. Förändringar i konsumenternas preferenser är en faktor som inverkar på produktion och export..

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om det går att påvisa några samband mellan jämställdhet och ekonomisk tillväxt. Med hjälp av multipel regressionsanalys undersöks paneldata från EU-15. Den beroende variabeln, ekonomisk tillväxt, förklaras av en rad oberoende variabler. Olika modeller testas för att se om tillförandet av jämställdhetsvariabler förbättrar modellen. För att avgöra om så är fallet undersöks förändringen i justerad förklaringsgrad.

The purpose of this study is to compare the economic differences between withdraw of forest fuel and withdraw of pulpwood in first thinning, to see which method gives the maximum profitability (income - cost). Another purpose is to investigate the economic impact of the thicket cleaning. The study compares four different methods: i) pulpwood output with thicket cleaning, ii) pulpwood output without thicket cleaning, iii) forest fuel output with thicket cleaning and iv) forest fuel output without thicket cleaning. The study was conducted in a 30-years old stand, dominated by spruce, outside Harg in Uppland. The method that generated the best economic net income was pulpwood without thicket cleaning. It generated a positive net of 1,383 SEK per hectare. Forest fuel output without thicket cleaning also generated a positive net in 720 kronor per hectare.

Making accurate predictions of private consumption expenditures is a difficult task. This thesis examines if consumer confidence can be used to forecast consumption. Using regression analysis, the link between consumer confidence and private consumption expenditures is analyzed for Sweden between the years 1994 and 2005. Two different models are estimated. In the first model consumption is regressed only on consumer confidence, while model two is extended to contain more variables.

As well as other politic fields, the cultural politics adapt to changes in society. The development in society has brought attention to the interaction between the cultural field and the economic field. One of the main goals within Swedish Cultural Policies today is the development of cultural and creative economics. Politicians and researchers claim that culture can be a significant part in economic growth in cities and making a place attractive to live in.I became interested in the discussion around the cultural experience as a factor of economic growth when I participated in a seminar at Karlstad CCC during Kulturparlamentet 2012. When I then started working at the music festival Putte i Parken during the spring of 2013 I thought about making this study.The main aim is to investigate in which way Putte i Parken can be a factor of growth and a factor of making Karlstad an attractive place to live in by analyzing documents, reports and literature in a qualitative way of working.

Noise music is created around sounds not often welcome in a musical context. Since the birth of electronic music in the 1950s a new perspective on composing has emerged. In electronic music, sounds and their timbre are as much important as melody, harmony and rhythm. This composing perspective is not often observed. Therefore I have examined a musical genre that stretches the boundaries of what we consider music, sound, noise, beautiful and terrible.

The analysis of acute phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA) has recently been brought into clinical use in veterinary medicine. Some of the difficulties with incorporating the SAA method in clinical practice have been the expensive and rather large equipment required for the method. Due to these difficulties only larger clinics can afford to use the SAA analysis.The company Equinostic has recently developed a smaller instrument that costs one-tenth of a larger instrument. The instrument is named EVA1 and has so far only been used to analyze SAA in horses.The aim of this study was to investigate if the EVA1 instrument could be used to analyze SAA in cats. This study included 24 serum samples from cat, which were first analyzed twice on the EVA1 instrument and then sent to the Strömsholm Referral Animal Hospital in Sweden where they reanalyzed the samples using a validated reference method.

Denna uppsats analyserar matchningseffektiviteten mellan lediga jobb (vakanser) och arbetslösa. Det faktum att den svenska Beveridgekurvan skiftat utåt under 1990-talet är en indikation på att de arbetslösa inte lika effektivt ?matchas? ihop med de lediga jobb som skapas. I uppsatsen identifieras två faktorer som påverkar matchningseffektiviteten; sökbeteendet hos arbetsgivarna och de arbetslösa, samt regionala obalanser mellan utbud och efterfrågan på arbetskraft. Sammanfattningsvis kan sägas att båda faktorerna tycks bidragit till sämre matchningseffektivitet under 1990-talet..

This thesis investigates the 200 year old phenomena of savings banks and if they increase the economic growth (GDP) in the local region they act in. That is being done by testing three hypotheses; the savings banks increase the attractiveness of the region they act in; the savings banks increase the entrepreneurship in the region they act in; and the savings banks increase the economic growth in region they act in. This quantitative cross-sectional study with data from the year 2010, finds that the savings banks increase the attractiveness of the local region, most likely through the efforts and financials they put into different local projects. A positive result is also found for increased entrepreneurship in the regions that have a local savings bank. The result is explained by the savings banks relationship lending, which increase the likeliness for a company to get the credit they need to start and develop.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka huruvida BNP-gap kan förutspåinflationen bättre jämfört med arbetslöshetsgap. Svensk kvartalsdata från1993 till och med 2005 har använts. Gapmåtten skapas med två olika metoder,en linjärregression och ett HP-filter. En direkt prognosmodell används föralla prognoser med out of sample metodik. Prognoshorisonterna somanvänds är ett kvartal, fyra kvartal samt åtta kvartal.

As a guitarbuilder it is an advantage if you can control and understand what is creating the character of the tone. To approach this vast jungle of variables that controls the tone in a guitar, I built two guitars and in one, guitar 2, reduced the thickness of soundboard, back and sides.The purpose was to compare the guitars and establish if there was a significant difference and what it was, in the guitars ability to produce sound. The thought was also to try the thesis: loud but short, long but moderate tone. Also if a lighter built guitar has an advantage in producing a loud but short ton and vice versa.The instruments has been examined by five guitarist, one guitarbuilder and a professor in Speech, music and hearing at KTH in Stockholm.The relative obvious conclusion is that guitar 2 is a bit louder and has a clearer base and treble but the more part of the guitarists fancied guitar 1 better. This one has got more mass fore the tone to stay alive with.