On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

The aim of this study is to create an increased understanding of shared leadership and how it takes shape in the relationship between first-line managers in human service organizations. Shared leadership is seen as a complement to the traditional one-man leadership and briefly means that two managers share the role that usually is held by a single leader. The study has a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with managers in human service organizations. The interviews mention the mangers thoughts and experiences about shared leadership and gain approval in the hermeneutic science field. The study is analyzed based on symbolic interactionism where perspectives from the theoreticians Mead and Goffman are used.

Alien plants that have intentionally been introduced to an area for cultivation in public or private gardens constitute the primary pathway of introduction for invasive alien species that spread into nature. Garden owners want species that have satisfying characteristics, these characteristics are often also linked to plant invasiveness. Thus, the horticulture industry plays an important role by making scientifically based decisions and phasing out invasive plants and replacing them with alternative species with satisfying characteristics, but low risks of becoming invasive. This thesis aimed to examine the sale of and the attitudes towards alien plants in the horticulture industry in Sweden. Alien terrestrial plants identified to have a severe risk, high risk or potentially high risk of spreading and becoming invasive according to ArtDatabankens assessment, were examined to see if they were for sale.

In 2002 the local council of Lund, Sweden, decides to implement the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. A number of actors, such as the state, the civil society, the political society and the bureaucracy, participate in the political process with different authority and points of departure. This thesis studies the actors´ interactions from an inside perspective by applying concepts such as political power, democracy and implementation. The methodological departure is action research from within, a local NGO, the local board of Save the Children Sweden. The results of the study indicate that governance and steering of the implementation process at the communal level is weak.

This paper examines the reasons behind firms considering backsourcing. While firms experience problems with their outsourcing activities, backsourcing emerges as an alternative solution. Firms primarily take cost considerations into account when reconsidering their outsourcing practices, but this only scratches the surface. A deeper analysis is needed, since cost increases arise from issues such as quality defects and cooperation problems. Even though production costs are low, outsourcing always implies transaction costs.

This study is based on interviews with five directors of educational administration within the Stockholm County. The purpose is to investigate how the directors of educational administrations, in the different municipalities, describe the relationship between the administration and the local school units. Moreover, the aim is also to describe the administration director?s work in relation to the various levels of the administration. To what extent can it be identified as a dimension of the learning organization described in this report.The study shows that skepticism is usually directed upwards toward the next level in the organization and that the decision-making right for local schools is consistently safeguarded.

The following article consists of two parts; one part is about house construction and the other is a specialization about radon. The house construction part describes how to project a house from start. It contains the conformation of the house, the installations needed, calculations considering the strength of the construction, energy calculation and what materials were chosen. Calculations considering the costs of building and operate the house has been carried out. The result showed that the house would cost approximately two million Swedish kroner to build and thirteen thousand kronor a year to operate.

The basic idea behind an extra year in school was to offer students who have not read nine years in Swedish primary school an opportunity to prepare themselves to pass a high school. This first group that went an extra year in school consisted of eleven students who completed their studies and went on to high school. During the time the group expanded, the school received students from various schools in the same municipality. During the follow-up of these groups could be noted that there were many students who registered, but only few students completed their studies and went on to high school. The purpose of this study was to explore why leadership in the classroom is important for students.

 Purpose/Aim: The goal of this thesis is to examine access and knowledge computers and the Internet among the senior-year students of Anacostia High School. Do the students of this facility have the same opportunity as the residents from better socioeconomical backgrounds or are they being excluded from the technology? Material/Method: To approach the thesis goal I have used a quantitative method. More specifically, a questionnaire was handed out to the senior year students at Anacostia High School. Main results: The study has shown that most of the students of Anacostia had in some way access to computers and Internet.

This study was performed to investigate the possibility to use ultrasonography as a diagnostic tool for sub-clinical mastitis in dairy cows. Five cows with high cell counts, and four cows with low cell counts were selected as cases and controls, respectively, and their udders examined with ultrasound during a 5 week period. The image of the udders of cows with high cell counts exhibited small, hyper-echoic, rounded foci, approximately 1 cm in diameter, near the milk cisterns and the base of the teats. These changes were not found consistently in all cows with high cell count, however. Ultrasonography may be a valuable complementary tool in the diagnosis of sub-clinical mastitis in dairy cow, but more cases need to be monitored before its full value can be ascertained..

This is a qualitative study of high school students? definition of their conception of a ?good? teacher. Its purpose is to provide increased insight for teachers about students? ideas of the phenomenon. The study is based on the reports of six respondents, which was later analysed according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis method (IPA).

This thesis reports on a case study of a forest company, Stora Enso, and their experience from a number of trials and experiments with ash recycling. A literature survey and a total of eleven in-depth interviews were carried out. Ash recycling was found to be the concern of three different divisions of the company. The pulp industry which produces the ash, the forest division which would be responsible for identifying land and spreading the ash, and Stora Research, which has had a major part in the design and implementation of research trials. Lacking an overall company decision on ash recycling the matter is left to the individual divisions.

Planet rendering plays an important role in universe visualization and geographic visualization. The recent tools and methods allow better data acquisition, usually with very high resolution. However in computer graphics, there is always the limitation on the resolution of geometry and texture due to numerical imprecision. Not many applications can handle high resolution data effectively.This thesis introduces, Implicit Surface Scene, a level of detail scene management inspired by dynamic coordinate system and SCALEGRAPH? which change over time depending on the current camera position relative to the planet surface.

The purpose of this essay is to examine why some countries in the world decided to support Kosovo?s declaration of independence in 2008, while others did not. The essay is a type of case study, with Kosovo?s independence as the main focus. For the purpose of the essay, main focus will be on the United States of America, Russia, China and Serbia.

My analysis consists of an in-depth study of the experience of a group of development programme participants who were exposed to the use of art and artistic work in organisation and leadership development, resulting in positive effects. My starting point is creativity as a concept according to paediatrician and psychoanalyst DW Winnicott who stresses how important playing and creativity is for us, even as an adult, for us to utilise our full potential. He believes that we have a psychological space ? a crossover area ? where the outer, objective reality and the inner, subjective reality meet. Playing, creative development and experiences occur in this space.