Green public procurement (GPP) can be used as an instrument to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and consideration of environmental aspects within public procurement is becoming more common in Sweden and internationally. Two product groups that have been pointed out as especially important are transports and electricity, where the opportunities for public purchasers to reduce emissions are relatively large. This paper studies GPP which aims at reducing emissions, primarily of carbon dioxide, through environmental requirements within these two product groups. A theoretical analysis of cost-effectiveness, transaction costs and effects on technological development is performed, followed by a closer study of how these aspects appear in practice within GPP. The results indicate that a cost-effective allocation of reductions between the two product groups is most likely to be attained if the main part of emission reduction is achieved through environmental requirements on electricity. The cost for emission reduction within transports is relatively high, especially for heavy transports. For transportation services, more generally focused requirements on emission reductions could probably give greater environmental gains, but the existence of transaction costs steer the environmental requirements towards more technology specific types.

Due to their complexity and heavy wear from rail traffic, switches are a sensitive part of the railway infrastructure and moreover expensive to maintain. Furthermore, increasing railway traffic not only accelerates the wear rate but also obstructs the necessary maintenance measures. This paper examines the opportunities for a transition to a long-term maintenance strategy in the Swedish railway network. It contains a study of the maintenance strategy of Banverket, and also analyses statistics of errors in the railway infrastructure. The survey was completed utilising interviews with infrastructure managers, maintenance contractors, planners of railway operations and the Banverket material service department.

This report is based on factors that has had affect on drugaddicts in their decission on quitting their abuse. The questions we have built our report on are: What external factors have had an impact on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? What internal factors have had an impact on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? Does the police have an influence on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? The report is based on intervjues with former drugaddicts. We have also studied the theory of symbolic interactionism and litterature written by different authors to obtain a broad picture of drugabuse. Our results in this report show that the people we have intervjued have been influenced by many different factors and people in their enviroment.

The purpose of our essay is to describe and analyse the experience of adults growing up with alcohol abusing parents and how their adult lives have been affected by this. The essay consists of both theoretical and empirical studies and we have used a qualitative method. We used a semi structured interview where we interviewed eight persons. We used symbolic interaction to analyse the collected data. The result is to a large extent consistent with previous research.

Chemical stabilization of mine waste from Ljusnarsbergsfältet with sewage sludge and calcium carbonate residuesMine waste from Ljusnarsbergsfältet in Kopparberg, Sweden, is considered to constitute a great risk for human health and the surrounding environment. Some of the waste rock consists of sulphide minerals. When sulphide minerals come into contact with dissolvedoxygen and precipitation, oxidation may occur resulting in acid mine drainage (AMD) and the release of heavy metals. The purpose of this study has been to characterise the waste material and try to chemically stabilize the waste rock with a mixture of sewage sludge and calcium carbonate. The drawback of using organic matter is the risk that dissolved organic matter can act as complexing agents for heavy metals and in this way increase their mobility.

Earlier this year the Swedish migration board gave a part of their responsibility for the separated children to those municipalities that have signed an agreement with them, so that the children can get the best handling of their matters and also to lift the heavy pressure of the Swedish migration board. Our aim in this paper is to see how this division is made and which areas of responsibility they have. We want to see how this process is being handled in relation to these children?s rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Swedish law. To get the best information possible we used a qualitative method.

The goal has been to design a product for unloading and storing small gadgetsin the hallway. The aim has been to facilitate the search for importantsmall objects that people never seem to find when they need them the most.The aim has also been to provide a sense of relief when people enter theirhome, and they can empty their pockets on one spot in a very simple yet orderlymanner. The product would be able to sort out, and make the gadgetsaccessible, take as little space as possible, be easy to use and not be perceivedas heavy and clumsy. The work has been done with close involvement of afocus group consisting of 20 people of different ages and with different occupations.The behavior of the focus group has been observed and test modelshave played a crucial role in advancing the work troughout the project. Theresult is a series of storage products for the wall, of simple shapes which canbe combined together in different ways depending on hallway and the user?sindividual taste or preference..

The municipality of Västervik, with support from Envipro Miljöteknik AB, is carrying out a main study of the minefields at Gladhammar. Mining of iron, copper and cobalt under different periods from the 16th century until the end of the 19th century has led to discharges of metals to the lakes situated downstream. The aim of the main study is to investigate the possibilities to reduce the environmental load on the surrounding ground and water caused by heavy metals from the mine. The present report is a part of the main study. The aim of the work is to investigate the geochemistry of the groundwater.

The main purpose of this study is to find out what kind of help social service in one selected municipality in Sweden can provide for children who have witnessed or been victims of domestic violence. Using focus group interview this study investigate how the social workers meet the needs of these children. The bases for our analysis are the Organization Theory and the Attachment Theory, as well as previous research. Important results are that the social services are dependent on notifications in order to do their work and that the most common interventions are foster care, emergency foster care and/or family therapy. The difficulties that social workers perceive their work are unjustified families and heavy workloads.

The following study aims to investigate the environmental conditions of the harbor of Sk?rhamn, a small fishing community on the west coast of Sweden. The interest to do so rose as a newly built apartment residence failed to connect the sewage pipes of 18 apartments, causing the untreated sewage running into the sea. The parameters accounted for are the C/N ratio, total organic carbon (TOC) as well as total nitrogen present (TN) and ?13C in the top ten centimeters of a sediment core retrieved in the Sk?rhamn harbour.

This essay discusses children?s rights and control and system of rules in HVB-homes that provide treatment for adolescences with drug abuse prob­lems or criminal behavior. The results of this study are based on interviews with four persons working in managerial positions on different HVB-homes and shows the difficulties of having a children?s rights perspective in a con­text where a higher level of control is necessary to protect the best interest of the child. The study suggests that the question of balance between children?s right and the need for controlling system of rules needs to be fur­ther dis­cussed to improve, and as far as possible guarantee that these adoles­cence receive best possible care and do not suffer unfair restrictions on liber­ties..

Flera kandidatgener har föreslagits spela en roll i utvecklingen av antisociala beteenden i samband med miljöfaktorer. Syftet med den föreliggande studien var därmed att undersöka sambandet mellan genen Katekol-O-Metyltransferas (COMT) och våld; och om det fanns interaktioner mellan exponering för tidigare övergrepp och COMT i samband med senare våld. Data hämtades från en Svensk populationsbaserad studie baserad på 2500 20-24 åringar. Den aktuella studien fann att beroende på vilken variant av genen man besitter, kommer man att påverkas i olika grad av negativa miljöfaktorer såsom försummelse och sexuella övergrepp i samband med våld..

The purpose of this paper is to examine the law regarding gross violations of women and its application in the Swedish legal system. We have investigated how the legal system takes into account a holistic perspective of the vulnerable situation of women in the investigation and assessment and the extent to which psychological violence in the form of verbal abuse, threats and harassment attention. We also wanted to find out how the law's design may contribute to difficulties in the implementation and interpretation of it. In this study, we used a qualitative research approach when we decided to conduct an interview with a police officer and a textual analysis of four cases from the district court. Interview questions were semi-structured in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

This work of investigation was to report how four study counsellors see upon the facts regarding the amount of admission, the students social surroundings and local designs for the Individual program (IV) at upper secondary school. Through interviews with four professionals set to guide the students at four different schools in the rural districts of Boden, Luleå, Piteå and Skellefteå, this has become a paper that describes how they see these young adults today. Different handicaps and diagnosis, troubles at home, pregnancy and even drug abuse tend to make you wonder how they possibly can get through school at all. Regarding local development within the program there are no strings of what to do but for every district to deside for themselves and this has led to different ?experiments? with students not mentaly fit for school at all.

Every year about 210 000 tones dry weight of sewage sludge is produced in Sweden. Most of the sludge is applied to agricultural land, plantsoil and landfill cover. Sewage sludge contains essential nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen is limiting growth on solid ground in Sweden and can therefore be used as fertilizer to increase productivity. In order that the sludge can be spread to forest land it requires first a conversion of sludge to pellets, to make it more manageable.