Active environmental activity?? a comparative study of the municipalities environmental activityThesis in Political Science D-Level at Karlstad University byJenny Ljung Spring 2008Tutor: Michelle MichelletiThe threat against our climate is one of our biggest challenges today. The awareness of the problem has grown rapidly for the last years in governments on international, national and regional level. The Swedish government is recognized as one of the leading countries in the climate and environmental work internationally. The Swedish municipalities play a big role in this successful work.

In the 90's the establishment of external trade centers had a strong growth in Sweden, primarily in large and medium cities. Gradually took smaller towns by this development. In larger cities with larger and growing customer base than in small towns were not affected by the trade centers heavily, but in the smaller towns where the customer base was smaller, there was a risk that it created a negative competitive relationship between external trade center and trade in the citycenter. In some cases, competition is a positive development for both the citycenter and external trade areas, but in some cases there was a risk that the center became impoverished. In such situation there are theories that the different variety of different types of goods should be at the center and in external trade center could lead to a balanced trade relationship.

With 25 countries being members of the European Union, travelling and working in other countries has become significantly easier. But what happens when one culture meets another one in a work situation? More specifically, what happens when French and Swedish cultures meet? Would a Swedish manager lead his team in the same way as a French one would?My question is: What is management philosophy like in Sweden and France? Do the two philosophies resemble? And if not, in what ways do they differ?The purpose of this essay is to find out, by looking at the material used at management courses, what the Swedish management philosophy really is. And then look at whether there are any similarities between this philosophy and the French one. The idea is to examine how management is being taught in both countries, by looking at what management litterature is used at some of the highest ranked management schools in Sweden and France.There have been numerous ethnological studies concerning nationality and cultural behaviour, one of the most important ones is the study done by Hofstede.

There is an awareness of the importance of gender equality in most western societies, both at the political level and in everyday life. In academia, for instance, gender is nowadays a scientific field which indicates that there is a lot of knowledge about the subject. What we do not have much knowledge about is whether gender knowledge leads to changes in gender relations in practice. The aim of this study is to explore how gender scholars relate to using ? practicing ? gender knowledge.

For systems with multicore processors contention for shared resources is a problem that occurs when several memory-intensive processes are executed in parallel within the same memory domain. This contention has a direct influence on the performance of the system and is a complex problem that has been recognized for a long time. An attractive and actively studied way to minimize this problem is by using a process scheduler adapted to allocate processor cores in a way such that contention for shared resources is minimized.With the introduction of multicore NUMA-systems (Non-Uniform Memory Access) the situation has become even more complex. In these systems the access time for processor cores to different memory domains vary depending on factors such as distance and load. Thus, the process scheduler also has to consider where the memory of each process is placed to minimize the distance and balance the load on each memory domain.This report presents a user-level process scheduler for a NUMA-system based on the multicore processor Tilera TILEPro64.

Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted infection. The infection rates have increased in the last decade. During 2008 the trend rates declined in all counties and regions in Sweden. Chlamydia infections have a geographical spatial pattern differences. This is seen from the national surveillance data report from the Swedish Institute for infectious disease control (SMI).

For Skattkärr IF a turf field with warming has been projected to increase field?s utilization hours and to have a longer period for athletes to perform their activities outdoors. The technique chosen to heat the plan is a type of a geothermal heating system without a heat pump. The brine, which is water with 30% ethanol, collects heat from the borehole and discharges it to a coil in the field. There is at position 11 boreholes but it is planned to increase the number to 31, which is the design for the facility.

This qualitative study is aimed to explore the leaders? experiences of difficult conversations in their work. We have examined if they take on a different role during the difficult conversations and how communication can affect their leadership during the conversation. We have also examined the importance of the leaders? ability to distance themselves from the sensitive subject and situation, to maintain their role as leaders.

At the end of 70s and the beginning of 80s, 18 terminals was built and used for chipping wood residue from clear cuttings. Most of the terminals was terminated before the 2000s but with the high oil- and energy prices that we can see today there might be a place for these terminals again. The goal with the study was to analyze and compare economical differences between 5 different logistical systems, collected data was used with a set of formulas. The systems include long range transport of slash, chips and bundles. Three of the systems include transport by lorry to industry the last two includes a terminal with access to train transport.

Due to higher standards of living around the world, greater industries and larger infrastructures causes an increase of the global energy consumption. This harvest of energy puts a great stress on the global environment. With this development, it becomes increasingly important to utilize energy resources in the best possible way.Fans are components that are often used in the industry and in households. A common problem is that the fan is oversized. An oversized fan causes an excessive flow, which has to be adjusted in order to achieve the correct flow.

Marketing communications have earlier been conducted via traditional channels. Today companies have discovered the possibility of doing much of their marketing communication in cooperation with the web at relatively low cost. This development has led to the ability for small businesses to compete with large companies independent of geographic location. The purpose with this thesis was to examine how small businesses use their website in marketing communications with their customers in the consumer market. In order to reach this purpose we have conducted interviews with five small businesses in different business trade with varying degrees of website usage, located in Piteå and Luleå.

Marketing communications have earlier been conducted via traditional channels. Today companies have discovered the possibility of doing much of their marketing communication in cooperation with the web at relatively low cost. This development has led to the ability for small businesses to compete with large companies independent of geographic location. The purpose with this thesis was to examine how small businesses use their website in marketing communications with their customers in the consumer market. In order to reach this purpose we have conducted interviews with five small businesses in different business trade with varying degrees of website usage, located in Piteå and Luleå.

?Are the headwaters streams at the right position in the map? is a study that has been performed on behalf of Holmen Forest, region Örnsköldsvik. This study will be the basis for deciding if the Hydrology Layer Property map or Holmen Forest map will be used for planning nitrogen fertilization in forestry. The background to this study is that nitrogen fertilization near water will increase the risk of nitrogen leaching out into the water systems, which has a negative impact on the environment. The headstreams positions have been recorded in the field with a GPS and the data analyzed in the geographic information system ArcMap.

X-rays are a potential risk for animal health care personnel. The present study will examine the risks for scattered radiation to the personnel, if no lead gloves are used when holding an animal during the x-ray examination. Furthermore, how the impact of the exposure values and body parts examined, affect the scattered dose to the hands of the holder. Also, the distance between the animal and the hand that holds it was evaluated to see the impact on scattered radiation exposure. Tested by a survey, to animal health care students, the frequency of the usage of lead gloves in Swedish animal hospitals was studied. According to the results from the analysis, animal health care personnel don't need to use lead gloves every time they hold an animal or a cassette during x-ray examinations.

Urbanisation has increased the distance between the urban and the rural. Urban agriculture can be a solution to overcome that distance. The characteristic of urban agriculture is the intensive production in intra urban and peri-urban areas. Until 1950s food production in cities was an important part of the urban economy and the urban food supply. Since the 1950s the urban located production of food has almost ceased in Sweden, partly as a result of cheap food imports.