Modelling of pollutants is commonly used in research and at departments working with environmental issues. The need to use large amounts of data when modelling creates the opportunity for more generalised models with lower data demands. Aggregating functions into coarser elements is a sort of generalisation of actual features in nature.A development of a method and a modelling tool called ?KadmiumKalkylatorn? has been performed to model cadmium pollution in rivers in Skåne, Sweden. The water runoff has been multiplied with cadmium standard concentrations based on membership in landuse classes.

Cumulative effects are seldom treated in Swedish Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). This report treats these questions and which procedures and methods that can be used when assessing cumulative effects in EIA. This report is a literature study where also a case study is a part. The case study shows how existing methods for cumulative effects can be used in practice. The report is concentrated on biology and treats cumulative effects on premises of biodiversity and roads. Cumulative effects include both direct and indirect effects.

Political realism is a general theory within political science focusing on the principle interest defined as power. The theory?s mutual standpoint is that states are inspired by power politics meaning that military and economic power or security stands in the centre while moral and ethics are placed in the periphery. This essay?s purpose is to analyze realism which helps to understand the development and change of the perspective.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and develop a useful theory of human behavior that recognizes the importance of our emotions. The new framework, called the theory of emotional choice, is developed by a holistic method in which results from the fields of psychology, sociology and (neuro-) biology are used to mutually support the conclusions. The theory is distilled into six preliminary points, which are based on the finding that we are not thinking as logical, rational and longsighted as is often assumed. Instead the regular human thinking is suggested to be shortsighted, intuitive and ruled by our emotions and our needs for generality, causality and normality.To demonstrate the usefulness of the new framework, it is used in an analysis of financial bubbles. Additionally, the fields of negotiation, election and ethics are suggested as potentially interesting to analyze with the new theory..

AbstractThis master thesis is a hermeneutic inspired case study of how the value base regarding the environmental and social responsibility in the Swedish coffee company Löfbergs Lila AB is affecting the company's business. A thesis inspired by hermeneutics means that it is based on two ideas, the one of interaction between entirety and partitions and the one of interpretation (Alvesson & Sköldberg 1994). This cause that the emphasis is on how the reality is interpreted and that it never can be seen as completely objective.The case study was conducted during the spring semester of 2010 at Karlstad's University and consists of both empirical and theoretical material collected during this time. The empirical material in this thesis includes, among other things, interviews with four representatives of Löfbergs Lila AB, written material from the company regarding its work related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), some information about the coffee industry as a whole and different certifications for "ethical? coffee that exists on the Swedish market.The basic idea with CSR as a business strategy is that it can be financially beneficial for companies to take a social and environmental responsibility outside of the company (Vogel 2005).

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study has been to analyse and understand the effects of heteronormative structures in the Swedish asylum process. Homosexual refugees, seeking asylum in Sweden, is in focus when proceeding an analysis about these social structures and normative phenomena. The main discourse, being handled in this study, is between homosexuality and heterosexuality. However, central findings in this study consists of how different approaches, such as gender based identities as well as sexual preferences and ethnic background, combined is influencing the asylum process and the treatment of the asylum seekers.The analysis is based upon legal material, as well as the guidelines and work ethics of the Migrationsverket, which is being compared with theoretical approaches on heteronormativity and structural hierarchy. To achieve a wider understanding of the area and to gain more information, we have also performed interviews with relevant sources.Key-words: Heteronormativity, asylum seekers, homosexuality, power structuresSara Haugbak & Jenny Thomsen, Sociology C, University of Växjö, Sweden.

In this modern period, societal and religious groups are strongly divided regarding the acceptability of abortion. Despite so many attempts by various groups to find a middle ground, the debate on abortion still remains largely polarized, at its most dramatic point with the extreme conservatives claiming abortion to be the moral equivalent of murder and the extreme liberals see it as devoid of moral import. And this polarization is due to the legal battle that continues to shadow moral discussions. An acceptance of an ethical nuance will here play as a concession on the deeply contested question of whether abortion should be a legally protected option for a woman, and to an extent blame for the continued crudeness which can be laid at the doorstep of a moral theory itself. Apparently, the ethical literature on abortion has focused almost exclusively on the tiniest moral assessment on whether and when abortion is morally permissible.

Det växande intresset för miljöfrågor har ökat kraven på företagen. Intressenterna kräver att företagen kan hantera miljöfrågorna på ett tillfredsställande sätt. Att införa ett miljöledningssystem är ett sätt att arbeta med miljöfrågorna. För att kommunicera ut miljöarbetet används företagets miljöredovisning. Under 1990-talet har intresset för miljöredovisning ökat kraftigt men är i mångt och mycket fortfarande ett storföretagsfenomen.

The aim of this thesis is to study how the form of ownership affects the freedom within an artistic organization such as a museum or an art gallery. I have compared a publicly owned organization, Moderna Museet, with a privately owned organization, Magasin 3. The study is limited to only investigating the area of exhibition activities. A qualitative method has been chosen, and the empirics have mainly been collected through semi-structured interviews.The result shows that the form of ownership affects the freedom. Overall, one can conclude that the missions of the organizations look different, where the privately owned organization is given a greater freedom within their mission than the publicly owned organization.

Organic agriculture is financially promoted in Sweden by special environmental support and as consumers we are all encouraged to buy organic food. At the same time scholars at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences claim that organic farming does not provide any environmental benefits. The main criticism is that organic farming has lower yields than conventional, which means that more land is needed to produce the same amount of food as in conventional farming, leading to deforestation and loss of biodiversity. As for climate change, the critics claim that the significantly higher productivity in conventional crop production compared to organic, releases surplus land, which could be used for bio-fuel production and thereby replace the fossil fuels. The critics also claim that organic farming causes higher nutrient leaching than conventional.

In order to answer the question in the title, a cross-cultural analysis of two countries was done. Countries chosen were the Republic of Latvia and the Kingdom of Spain. The need for this research was suggested by increased cross-border business activities inside the European Union, and the lack of previous studies involving new Member States. The aim of the research was to see what environmental factors influence advertising adaptation in the European Union, as well as to evaluate the applicability of a standardisation approach. According to the theory, there are three external factors that influence the creation of a global advertising.

The gathered texts and letters from Ali Ibn Abi Talib, found in the book Nahjul Balagha,constitute one of the most important writings of Shiite Islam, next the hadits and the Quran.Imam Ali´s ethics and moral approach in Nahjul Balagha, is considered by imam Ali, to beseen as a guideline for both individual purposes as for any kind of governance. The esotericteachings, about truth and justice in Nahjul Balagha, should therefore probably have been of agreat concern to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution.This essay will from an deductive approach, on a relatively contemporary historic event, try toanalyze Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini´s interpreting on imam Ali´s texts and preaching inNahjul Balagha. The Islamic revolution, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by AyatollahKhomeini, was confirmed as both brutal and violent. My ambition in this essay, will there forconcern a possible interpreting on justice and political rule, from Ayatollah Khomeini and theIslamic Republic of Iran, on imam Ali´s teachings in Nahjul Balagha..

The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication that largely is due to nutrient leaching from farmland within the catchment area. To solve this problem the surrounding countries cooperate within various configurations such as HELCOM and the EU-financed project Baltic Compass. Poor manure management in Russia has been discussed frequently the last couple of years. A literature review of different types of reports and legal acts is the core of this degree project which has been performed in connection to two ongoing research projects financed by EU (Baltic Compass) and SIDA. It is supplemented with interviews with Swedish agricultural consultants and travel reports from two occasions when I had the opportunity to discuss with Russians active within the agricultural sector. Different hypotheses were investigated and discussed. The environmental debate in Russia is quiet and there is a widespread approach that economic profit always trumps environmental concern ? a Soviet heritage that influence the Russian agriculture considerably. The Russian legal acts on stable manure management focus mainly on sanitary questions and only secondary on nutrient leaching.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how investments are justified in the Swedish data center industry, with a focus on cooling equipment. This is achieved through semi-structured interviews with 20 different interviewees. These interviewees represent different facets of the industry and facilitate an understanding of which factors, such as: investment costs, operating costs, reliability, environmental impact and the influence of external and internal actors, come into play and to which degree they impact the investment decision-making process. The results show that primarily low operating cost in the form of low energy consumption is the driving factor when it comes to the procurement of new equipment. A lower environmental impact is a positive side-effect of lower energy consumption.

Corporate Social Responsibility has been defined as the responsibility towards stakeholders and the society in whole and the expression was founded in the 1950´s. Reporting in corporate social responsibility has been termed corporate social disclosure and has been divided into three areas: environment, ethics and human resources. The aim of this study is to explain variations in corporate social disclosure and the different media used by corporations to communicate these disclosures. A survey was conducted, which included all Swedish corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and all public-owned corporations. The results show that corporate characteristics such as size, industry and profitability can explain some of the variation in social disclosures and also have an effect on the extent and variation of the media used.