The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

Fiscal policy and its consequences have attracted much attention on both academic and societal level, in Sweden and elsewhere. However, the dependence between fiscal policy on municipality level and business cycles has only recently sparked a debate among Swedish economists. Studies point out that a law which came to force in 2000, balanskravet, may have caused municipalities to lower expenditures, alternatively raising taxes, during recessions. This thesis examines how the level of municipality taxes depends on business cycle fluctuations and the impact that balanskravet has had on this correlation. We employ econometric regressions, with annual data covering the period 1980-2014, to enable an analysis of the dependence between taxes and business cycles, both before and after the introduction of balanskravet.

Aim: To examine director?s experiences of the process to implement smoke-free working hours and also their need of support to make it feasible in the municipality of Östhammar. Method: A qualitative interview study with a descriptive design was used. Semi-structured interviews were made with six directors who were selected from different levels, localities and administrations in the municipality of Östhammar. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: Many positive aspects were pointed out regarding the implementation of smoke-free working hours.

In December 2008 the municipal council in Nybro, decided that the municipality shouldreduce the budget for food service. The budget should be reduced by 2 100 000 SEK.They decided that the children- and education committee, and the care committee would haveto lower their budget with 1 264 000 SEK respectively 636 000 SEK. The change have to bedone under two years, 60 % should be done under 2009 and 40 % under 2010.As a result of the decision, many kitchens have to become kitchens that only serve food, notcook it. This will result in preschool staff and nursing staff take over some of the tasks fromthe kitchen staff. The municipal council also decided that entrepreneurs could take over one(later two) cooking areas.A kitchen that serves food means that there isn?t any cooking involved.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how a bookstore chain and a public library meet the needs of their customers through environmental scanning. The empirical material is derived from six semi-structured interviews with six informants, three from each organization, together with an analysis of internal documents. The method used is a case study and the theoretical framework is based on models used in the process of environmental scanning, as described by Choo, Hamrefors and Hedin & Sandström among others, and which facilitate a comparison of the environmental scanning of the two organizations. The results of the study indicate that the library, as a public organization with a mission in society, perceives the environment as society as a whole and all its members as their users, whereas the bookstore concentrates on the sectors of the environment that affect their sales. The consequences of these different views are that the library is more active in the environment and uses surveys as a basic source of information, while the bookstore is more passive, and relies on statistics for information.

This study draws from Zygmunt Bauman´s theory that a governmental policy of values can reduce the personal responsibility and moral choices for employees, to focus only on maintaining the government?s internal rules and regulations. The apparent risk with this type of moral attenuation is that the employee is deprived of the possibility to react morally on conduct of the government?s external misuse of power. In this study, this theory is connected to the Swedish Armed Forces? policy of values, as these values do not include a critical standpoint for officers and soldiers.

There is a clear difference between types of regions and forms of regionalization. This theoretical division can point out other division lines on different areas and levels, like the one of discourses. In this article is urged that regional political discourses may be divided in West and East European ones. To argue for West and East differences in regional discourse the article shows division lines both in the history of regionalization but also in ideologies. The regional policy of the EU is one example for today's regionalization as a West discourse and the Transylvanian in Rumania as an example for the East discourse.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

The Swedish building and property management sector are responsible for about 30 % of the total energy use. In order to take environmental consideration, different environmental assessment tools and standards are used. Miljo?byggnad, Svanen, FEBY12 and PHI are some of these. There has been increased interest to certify buildings and therefore it is of interest to evaluate the assessment of the energy field to see if relevant energy aspects are assessed.

The creation of Region Skåne, and the transfer of the development responsibility from the national administrative country board (Länsstyrelsen) has given the state new challenges. New structures have grown between Region and State, and also between different municipalities. These can be characterized as Policy-networks, and the goal of this study is to analyze the planning process of the regional infrastructure with these theories.This is a qualitative study of the infrastructure process in Skåne, and the actors that acts within this process. It has been studied with the eyes of the theories of Governance and Policy-networks. The main method to collect material has been through interviews with different actors within the process, and very little written material has been used.

Organic material used for biogas production can also undergo other treatments. The emissions and impact from the different treatments are evaluated in this environmental assessment, with a focus on energy and climate. The materials included in the study are organic household waste, slaughterhouse waste and liquid manure. Other than biogas production, the possible treatments for organic household waste and slaughterhouse waste are incineration and composting, and for liquid manure storing and spreading. The analysis is based on data and information from current and relevant literature, and relates to the conditions in the Swedish energy system.

I följande rapport behandlas en analys av Axel Larsson Maskinaffär ABs datanätverk. En modell av nätverket togs fram för att ligga som grund för resterande arbete. Dokumenteringsmetoden UML användes till de diagram som gjordes över nätverkets uppbyggnad. Datatrafiken i nätverket analyserade för att ta reda på bandbreddsanvändning vid normal och max belastning. Portspegling valdes som metod för att avlyssna nätverket och Wireshark användes som verktyg vid insamling och undersökning av data.Även befintlig IT-policy undersöktes och förslag till en ny arbetades fram tillsammans med riktlinjer för vad man bör tänka på vid framställning av en IT-policy.Resultatet av dataanalysen visade på att problemet som upplevts inte ligger i datanätverket utan i antingen servrar eller i CRM programmet Jeeves.Två förslag på IT-policy togs fram som redovisas i Appendix A..

The aim of the study was to investigate how four pupils in sixth grade use language when writing narrative texts, examined in relation to the typical structure and linguistic features of a narrative text. Another aim was to explore the similarities and differences between texts which received an A or B grade and texts with a D or E grade. The pupils? texts are analysed from a systemic-functional perspective on language and on the basis of the typical structure and language of a narrative text, with the focus on expressions of time, processes, descriptions and nominal groups (cf. Johansson & Sandell Ring 2012).

With an increasing production of biogas follows an increased amount of digestate. This could potentially be a valuable source of fertiliser with the destruction of weed seeds as a possible advantage. However, there have been some concerns regarding the product still containing viable seeds of weed. In this Bsc thesis the results of previous research on the fate of weed seeds in biogas production is summarized. It is also a comparison of research on the effect of similar processes such as silage, compost or animal passage on seeds. The purpose of this is to evaluate risks of spreading viable seeds, potentially problematic species and perhaps to find out how to eliminate the risks. The literature review revealed that previous research mainly indicates low risks regarding many of the tested weed species, but not all studies show the same result, therefore extended research on the subject is desirable.

The climate issue is a significant question, and the problem is mainly caused by human activities. Everyone can help to counteract the enhanced Greenhouse effect by reducing the amounts of energy they use and by not consuming more products then they need.Schools are some of societies many consumers and therefore contribute to the Greenhouse effect. The School also has an important task; to teach and disseminate knowledge and information about the climate and the environment. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education, Skolverket, must all schools regularly consider the environment and sustainable development throughout the entire education process. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many schools in Sweden today.One of many tools that can be used to coordinate environmental work and initiatives, and also to make it more efficient, is environmental management systems.