In this master thesis, I investigate four Public Librarys´ program activities. The purpose is to explore what the library program activities contribute to as a part of a well functioning democracy. The theoretical points, I have brought from political science. I assume three different ideals of democracy; electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberative democracy. All have different views on what can be characterized by a well-functioning democracy.My empirical material consists of library program guides, the libraries´ target documents and interviews with staff at the libraries who work with or have overall responsibility for program activities in their respective libraries.

The Essay starts with studying the time after the Second World War and its boom, the force behind many of the abandoned locations we see in our city today. Thereafter the idea of place is looked into, its importance for the individual and how the own individual experience affects the experience of place. It is about how we can create own places and through that recapture the city and give it meaning and contents again. The social aspects are being discussed as an important component of creating a feeling of reality. Further studies the abandoned rooms historical values since the past have an ability to raise the experience of a place. How decayed depends highly of economy and how we have gotten so used to changes that we accept capitalism as a driving force to decay is also being discussed. Thereafter the planers roll for the abandoned places in the city is being raised.

Denna uppsats är en utvecklingsstudie av TV-serien Sex and the city. Syftet är att med hjälp av narrativ analys samt Keith Selbys och Ron Cowderys metoder från boken How to study television studera det första och det sista avsnittet av serien för att därefter undersöka förändringar i avsnittens miljö samt karaktärernas dialog och kläder. Detta med hjälp av teorier om livsstil, subkulturer och mode inom populärkultur. Förändringen från första till sista avsnittet handlar mycket om karaktärernas sätt att se på sin egen livsstil. Huvudfokus i dialog och handling har flyttats från sex till kärlek och de fyra huvudkaraktärerna har alla utvecklats till mognare versioner av sig själva, någots om känns naturligt eftersom serien startade 1998 och avslutades 2004.

In the current situation in the housing market and in particular the inner city much attention is directed towards achieved prices per square meter in sales. The indicator is as a principle an appropriate measure of the housing market?s health and development, and can to some extent be used to make approximations of the general economic health status of municipalities and counties. It occurs occasionally that questions about whether prices are based on fundamentals at all times.The thesis questions that very issue, not from a macro accompanying financial perspective but rather from a microeconomic perspective, where each tenant ownership in the study is a micro-object. Are the observed prices per square meter rational relative to housing cooperative?s assets or is there a lack in the observed prices anchoring the respective association's finances.

Uppsatsen behandlar temat urbana tillväxtstrategier i svensk planering. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur översiktsplaner har påverkats av entrepreneurial city, platsmarknadsföring och kreativa klassen som alla är olika teorier om urban tillväxt. Undersökningen utgår ifrån fem kommuner med en översiktsplan från tidigt 90-tal och en aktuell plan antagen omkring 2010. Översiktsplanerna studeras utifrån de valda teorierna (entrepreneurial city, platsmarknadsföring och kreativa klassen) om urban tillväxt för att ge förståelse för hur strategierna i kommunernas översiktsplaner har påverkats av teorierna. Den genomförda undersökningen visar på en förändring över tid som pekar mot mer tillväxtorienterad planering..

The prevailing urban migration is a worldwide process. This results in growing cities and a diminishing proportion of people living in the countryside. As the urbanization continues a large amount of the world?s population is expected to live in urban settlements of informal character by 2050. Green Belt has for many years been used to control urban growth and to secure the sustention of larger green areas around towns and cities.

The world has become a globalized place in constant development and much of which is now taken for granted did not even exist 30-40 years ago, such as smartphones or Internet in common households. As new tourist destinations is continuously being created, it becomes increasingly important with effective place marketing to compete in the global market. Developing a good and interesting profile is thus a way for places to become more attractive for tourists. The main theory in the paper is "post-industrialization and the entrepreneurial city" which describes how cities in the global north have moved away from industry towards becoming post-industrial cities ? very often with a strong focus on tourism.

Our paper is a study about youth and their self-images. During our practical training period we found that the problems young people had always were connected with their self-image. We therefore wanted to find out what youth believe influence their self-image. The purpose of our study was to examine young people and their self-images in a perspective of the ecological systems model. Essential issues have been what self-images young people have, what they consider influence their self-image most, how they think they can resist influence from the environment and how they would like to be influenced by the environment if they could decide themselves.

A new system of public transportation that can simplify and shorten the trips made throughout the city, anddo that both cheap and environment-friendly. Sounds like good news. This new system, though, require anall new type of infrastructure, differing from what we are used to see in our cities. Podcar, or PRT, as thesystem is called can become a transport revolution, possibly. If that revolution does happen it is crucial that webeforehand have studied the possible effects it can cause on our city environment, from a spatial point of view.This thesis thoroughly describes the function and essence of the PRT system and presents what is availabletoday and in what forms.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what kind of pictures the children encounter everyday in their classroom. Furthermore, the idea was to immerse myself in how girls and boys are portrayed in these pictures from a gender perspective. Three question were set, to enable this study: What kind of pictures will second grade pupils encounter in their classroom, in a city school and in a rural school?How many girls and boys are illustrated in these pictures?How are girls and boys portrayed in these pictures?The examination was done by a field study of two classrooms, where all the pictures on the walls were documented using a digital camera. The collected material were examined, using both a quantitative analysis and a qualitative ditto.

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is one of the leading causes of acute encephalitis in humans. The virus is spread by mosquitoes, mainly belonging to the Culex species. The main reservoirs are considered to be birds and pigs, with pigs constituting the most important reservoir in regard to human infection. During the last few decades the production of pork has increased significantly in Vietnam. With 90% of pigs being kept in households owning 10 pigs or less, pigs are widely spread across most parts of the country.

The aim of this thesis is to establish a ?förvaltningsplans? template to Fastighetskontoret in Vasteras city. Further general information about the mission was given at our first meeting with Rolf Haraldsson, who happened to be our mentor and works at Fastighetskontoret in Vasteras city.We agreed that using the software Excel was the most appropriate way to establish the template, because Fastighetskontoret also make use of Excel in their internal system, and also because Excel has a more friendly user interface and it is more easier to use compared to other software that have complex templates.One of the first things we did was to get in contact with different fastighetskontors around Sweden so that we could either take part of their ?förvaltningsplaner? or get referred to other material that could have been used. But this turned out to be an unsuccessful strategy.

The development of our time, is due to great progresses in technology and an enormous ex-plosion of knowledge, has lead to an increased effort of our attention as a result of a boundless torrent of information . Higher productivity and efficiency in our workplaces and homes crea-tes fewer opportunities for rest, leading to a community where stress has become a national disease. Recreation is an important part of our lives in order to be able to deal with stress and is now considered to be an essential resource when it comes to sustainable development. Green spaces are therefore today viewed to play a considerable roll for the national health. Nature has proven to have positive influence on man which leads to a decrease in blood pressure, an increase in power of concentration and lowered production of stress hormones.

The City of Stockholm has decided to invest in renewable energy and especially in photovoltaics. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the photovoltaic potential on roof areas that the city possesses and to further investigate some buildings of the Property Management Department. The thesis also compares some existing photovoltaic plants with the solar irradiance map which shows available roof area on each building in Stockholm. The report ends with a literature study about the climate impact and greenhouse gas emissions of photovoltaic.The total available roof area suitable for photovoltaic plants is estimated to 700 000 m2, with a potential electricity production of 110 GWh per year. This corresponds to 17 % of the City of Stockholm?s yearly electricity consumption.

This is a final project which makes up 20 credits at the Landscapearchitecture programme at SLU in Alnarp. The thesis is design based. My final project is comprised two parts; of a competition entry for ? A New Square in the Centre of Täby? as well as a theoretical study that derives from the competition proposal. The competiton itself was announced on March 1st 2007 with the final hand-in date on May 28th 2007. The program of the competition asked for a flexible urban square that offers a diverse range of activities that can be used during both night and day, all year around. I became interested in the term ?mutlifunctionality? and I went on to use the subject as a base for my design approach.