The aim of this essay is to try to find the differences and similarities of two public librariesin the town of Kristinehamn and the rural community of Vara during the year 1994. Especiallyinteresting was if the different political traditions of the two communities -left wing majorityin Kristinehamn and right wing in Vara- have influenced the forming of the public libraries.The comparison contains accounts from the annual reports produced by the libraries between1987 and 1994, a more thorough study of the activities and interviews with decision makers in1994. The interview with the decision makers indicates that there is a distinct difference betweenthe librarians and the rest of the informants, this distinction shows, that in a tight budgetsituation the librarians prefer not to cut down on staff while the other informants actuallyfavour to make cuts on the procedures handled by the librarians. The general opinionthough, is that they all agree that the role of the public libraries is to defend democratic rights.The final conclusion is that the material of this essay supports the opinion that the idea ofpublic libraries is stronger than the political differences in Vara and Kristinehamn..

Trade was assigned as a Community responsibility at the founding of the European Community in 1957. It was then recognized that Europe would achieve a greater international influence if it were to negotiate trade deals with one voice. Since then, the basic rule has been that the European Commission negotiates agreements on behalf of the EC, and presents the agreements negotiated for approval in the European Council. Today, the 25-member European Union is the largest trading power in the world, and most member states have decades of experience of coordinating their national trade interests into a common position. However, partly as a result of the complex nature of the trade decision-making processes it is sometimes problematic to identify who or what really influences EU trade policy.

This study looks to establish which implications the norm, use and view on the written Swedish language in society and school might have in regards to the teaching of Swedish in the Upper Secondary School, specifically year one. It poses questions as to which views on norm and use can be found in textbooks, in syllabi and in the everyday work of teachers. Through research and analysis of the last three syllabi of the Swedish subject and three corresponding textbooks, along with interviews with two teachers of Swedish, it is shown that from the 1970s onward, there has been a shift from a language norm that incorporates everybody and makes everybody responsible to a language norm that in essence is second to the individual progress of students and successful written communication. It is argued that one does not necessarily exclude the other and that, given a successful education, students may use their knowledge of lingual norm to excel in written language activities..

Introduction/Background: Economic evaluations help decision-makers to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation. Information generated from CEA can support evaluations of a new intervention with current praxis. The evaluations also provide information as to whether an intervention is cost-effective, both in economic terms and in health gains. Objective: The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of economic evaluations in public health, with a focus on CEA. Use of economic evaluations is regarded as both a method for evaluation and as support for informed decisions.

The problems around and the planning of wood flow is some of the most complex issues in the forest-sector. The experience and overview of the single employees is crucial for the possibility of correct tactical and economical decision-making. The increasing demand of savings and shorter reaction-times with greater flexibility in the wood-supply-chain, makes solutions and aids for improved effectiveness in the work and processes according to wood-flow urgent. Holmen Skog is starting to develop a new forest-road-management-system. The system will facilitate the work according to construction, improvements and updating the standard of roads.

Driveability analysis of terrain data offers an important technique for decision support for all kinds of movements in the terrain. The work described in this report uses a high resolution digital terrain model generated from the laser radar data and further processed by the Category Viewer program, and information from the Real Estate Map. Properties of features found in a filtering process are calculated and compared with a set of rules in a knowledge base to get a driveability cost. This cost is then visualized in a graphical user interface. An evaluation of what driveability is and what it is affected by is performed, and a general cost function is developed, which can be used even if not all relevant information is available.

The present study examines the demolition of a house on Hammarkulletorget in 1996 and the discourse of Hammarkullen, Gothenburg(Sweden), drawn from the perspective of historicization [?historisering?]. I have examined how the past played role inpresentations of Hammarkullen and how the past affected the decision to demolish a house. By examining which role the neighbourhood?spast time played in the perception of the neighbourhood, the thesis aims at providing a better understanding of howthe past can influence and legitimize major changes in the urban environment.In the early 1980s the image of Hammarkullen as a victim of negative publicity is established and this reputation lives beyond thesimplistic and negative descriptions themselfs.

This paper describes the development of a simulation model for the ambulance flow in the Västra Götalands-region of Sweden, and an analysis tool for the output of the simulation model. The aim of the simulation model was to be able to evaluate the outcome from changes in the ambulance operations, such as a reorganization of ambulances or an increase in intensity of the ambulance calls. This evaluation is meant to serve as decision support for the strategic planning of the ambulance operations. The analysis tool was developed to visualize the abundant geographical data produced by the simulation model in a meaningful way. The simulation model was validated against historical data which showed that the dispatch time for the highest prioritized ambulance calls corresponds well with historical data.

This study is a first attempt to try to understand what the variables could be that make the person responsible for the grave sign up for grave gardening services by the church or to maintain the grave by him- or herself. There has been almost no research done within this subject. This study has been made by a qualitative research method and interviews have been performed with both persons responsible for the grave who have gardening services made by the church and with those who maintain the grave by themselves. The characteristics that are affecting consumer behaviour and the buyer decision process are presented in the theoretical part of this study. That is done so it can be seen if a comparison between the results of the study and the basic theoretical concept is possible, resulting in an understanding of how the costumers think and argue about this question.

Data sets are continuously increasing within organizations. Data sets will also be in larger amounts,have shorter lifetime, is becoming more varied and holds various degrees of uncertainty. Together,these dimensions are included in the term Big Data. There is no universally accepted definition ofBig Data and how it should be used. Applications that turn out to be part of a Big Data conceptoften begin as investments in an organization in order come to new insights or create new businessperspectives.

This thesis aim to advance the Liberal Integrovernmentalism (LIG) developed byAndrew Moravcsik in order to order to explain how the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can make de facto EU policies diverge from what was originally intended by the Member States. More specifically it describes how the Posting of Workers Directive, Directive 96/71/EC, originally was created to shield certain Member States and their respective systems of regulating the labour market from pressure arising from the posting of workers form low-wage countries inside the EU. However, through a series of cases in the ECJ the de facto policy of the directive has changed and it is now in itself a potential threat against these systems. The Member States now find themselves caught in a ?Joint-Decision Trap?, unable to rectify the situation even though their original agreement has been turned on its head.

On the 13th of June 2005 the Minister of Defence, Leni Björklund, was subjected to a formal complaint addressed to the Committee on the Constitution concerning her handling of a specific co-operation project with France. The project concerned the development of a technology demonstrator for an UCAV called Neuron. The reason for the complaint was that the Minister of Defence had failed to present the project to the parliament and thus bypassed a parliamentary decision. Such negligence might be considered unlawful under the Swedish Constitution. The issue became public during an unscheduled meeting with the Committee on Defence, a meeting that was arranged at the request of the Minister of Defence.

This study aims at examining the prospects for a policy transfer of a Swedish municipal environmental policy (that of Växjö) to the French urban commune Blois, for which an ambition of becoming a leading eco-city in France, was declared by the mayor in 2008.In the analysis, emphasis is laid on mechanisms to institutionalize the main environmental policy principles, such as political and institutional structures and processes. Other prospects for an institutionalization of a new environmental policy that are to be investigated are economic structures as well as visions of the different decision-makers concerned. Research methods used in the study are qualitative interviews, document studies and a questionnaire.The findings of the analysis show that today?s prospects for an environmental policy in Blois close to that of Växjö, are clearly limited. The limitations can partly be found in economic structures but these seem to be rather related to a lack of priority amongst actors.

Are agency and responsibility solely ascribable to humans? The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), including the development of so-called ?affective computing,? appears to be chipping away at the traditional building blocks of moral agency and responsibility. Spurred by the realization that fully autonomous, self-aware, even rational and emotionally-intelligent computer systems may emerge in the future, professionals in engineering and computer science have historically been the most vocal to warn of the ways in which such systems may alter our understanding of computer ethics. Despite the increasing attention of many philosophers and ethicists to the development of AI, there continues to exist a fair amount of conceptual muddiness on the conditions for assigning agency and responsibility to such systems, from both an ethical and a legal perspective. Moral and legal philosophies may overlap to a high degree, but are neither interchangeable nor identical.

Syftet med denna studie är att utreda begreppen big data och analytics. Utifrån vetenskapliga teorier om begreppen undersöks hur konsultföretag uppfattar och använder sig av big data och analytics. För att skapa en nyanserad bild har även en organisation inom vården undersökts för att få kunskap om hur de kan dra nytta av big data och analytics. Ett antal viktiga svårigheter och framgångsfaktorer kopplade till båda begreppen presenteras. De svårigheterna kopplas sedan ihop med en framgångsfaktor som anses kunna bidra till att lösa det problemet.