This master thesis explores the nature of public participation as a central and most current subject in the field of urban planning. A first impression exposes a seemingly unanalyzed consensus on the values and benefits which public participation provides the process of urban planning. The city may be a concern to all its inhabitants; hence knowledge and opinions of the local public are of great importance for the urban development. But is there really something new to these assumptions, and are the advantages of increased public participation in urban planning always obvious?  By using action research as a main method, I have put myself into the context of the Swedish municipality of Nacka and their projects dealing with the development of public participation.

This study evaluates the retention of nitrogen and phosphorus in four newly constructed wetlands in the municipality of Falkenberg, Sweden. The four wetlands have been selected because they have been specifically constructed with the aim to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in farming areas. The process of selecting the specific wetlands has been done in collaboration with the county administration in Halland. Through field studies in collaboration with the landowners where the wetlands are sited, the areas that provide the wetlands with water were determined. The size of these drainage areas were determined in a GIS computer program. The type of land use within the drainage areas was also determined.

The project Easy Battery Handling - EBH has been carried out in our auspicial and completedfor Devantini Corporation, a development company in Halmstad with its main concern inenvironmental friendly innovations.EBH has solved one of many technical challenges in one of Devantini corporation?s largerprojects. This main project involves the development of an electric powered formula racingcar. The part of this car that involved EBH was the battery handling to guarantee safe andquick battery exchanges during pit-stops.The solution became an entire battery module, hanging on the side of the car on two spearspointing out from the car. The batteries are exchanged by a specially designed trolley that isinserted under the battery module.

At the moment, democracy enhancing projects can be seen everywhere on the municipal level. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the city of Lund takes on this challenge, why they have chosen to carry out citizen councils and if these are a good way to intensify democracy and open communication channels between citizens, the administration and the elected officials.The theoretical framework consists of seven arguments for gaining citizen influence on policy, and as a counterweight three critical arguments that opponents of participatory democracy often use are added.After a survey over both the Swedish national trends in municipal renewal and the last years work in Lund, the analysis goes on showing that most of the arguments point to the disadvantage of the citizen councils. Even though legitimacy possibly is enhanced by the project, there are probably better ways to open up for more communication and intensify democracy in the local community..

This diploma work was conducted in collaboration with the Swedish civil engineeringconstruction company Skanska Construction in Stockholm. Their interest is todevelop a number of type approved form constructions which can be used during theconstruction of concrete walls. Skanska focuses on improving safety on their projectsand both supervisors and workers have a need for approved form constructions inthe current situation.The study is focused on safety and the purpose is to facilitate the preparation beforethe form work can begin. By studying the literature of the subject and conductinterviews with employees at Skanska Construction, the understanding of the issueand knowledge will be increased.Literature studies, interviews together with production and design have been thebasis for a successful study. The work has resulted in three types of approved formconstructions to Skanska Construction and the drawings can be used of employees atthe company.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze how three leisure centers in Örebrocounty are working with gender issues. Our research questions are:What is Machofabriken? How do leisure centers in Örebro county work with equal treatment?In which way do leisure centers in Örebro county work with Machofabriken?s material? Howcome the recreation centers in Örebro don?t use Machofabriken?s material to any greaterextent?We have focused on masculinity oriented gender projects at three leisure centers. We didsemi-structured interviews with three recreation leaders who have all been educated inMachofabriken. The interviews were analyzed based on terms that are central in genderequality and masculinity research.

The purpose of this report is to examine various roof structures that can operate in a warehouse with large spans. The building that is examined in the report is currently under construction, and the roof construction has already been selected. The selected roof system will therefore be compared with some other structures and materials that have been possible. The report will evaluate three different frame materials, two insulating barriers and two overlaying materials. Another important part in major construction projects is the roof safety.

Turning solar collectors, heliostats, is certainly not a new idea but has been explored for at least two decades. Projects on this subject have resulted in more or less realistic constructions, in a commercial point of view. Far too often the technical goals have had higher priority than the economical, which has resulted in a few constructions having the ability to compete with conventional, fix solar collectors. The economical issues have been given high priority in this project, without decreasing the demands on reliability. The system has been given the following mechanical and electronical properties: One-axis movement, fix heat carrying fluid system, microcomputer controlled movement and automatic protection from overheating.

According to statistics, requirements management is identified as a major source of error to failed IT-projects. Moreover communication is identified as a factor affecting the require-ments management and can lead to deficiencies in the requirements. The requirements analyst is responsible for managing the requirements from the different stakeholders, act as a com-munication accommodator and to translate abstract requirements expressed by users to more specific requirements that developers can implement. The purpose of this thesis is to study the role of the requirements analyst to investigate the problems that may arise in working with requirements management.  To achieve the purpose we have performed a requirements management process in which we ourselves took the role as the requirements analysts. The requirements management process consisted of three phases: gather requirements, document requirements and validate require-ments.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to identify guidelines for a sustainable production that can provide useful information concerning the establishment of a biodiesel production. These guidelines concern the surrounding production environment, such as infrastructures and industries.The thesis is based on theoretical grounds surrounding industrial symbiosis, biodiesel production and how sustainable development should be designed. A study of an already established producer in a similar business area has been used to provide a picture of similar projects. The thesis has with the supervisor's consent focused on the production conditions that are affected by location.The production conditions selected are heating, raw material market, residual and sustainable profile. These are then evaluated through an Excel-based sensitivity analysis.

This master thesis is aiming to find out how school libraries work towards children in school years 1-6. The mainfocus is how the school librarians and teachers work with literature and reading. The theoretical viewpoints aremainly the sociocultural theory and the child perspective.The study was conducted with participants from five different schools in Uppsala, in the form of qualitativesemi-structured interviews. The results show that schools work with literature first and foremost in a pragmaticway, with reading-strategies and activating discussions. Very little time is spent on reading for its own sake.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the advantages of using programme software to monitor masshauling instead of using the conventional method. A comparsion between different programs will also be conducted in an attempt to determine the most affordable. This report is written for NCC Construction AB to help them choose a software most fitting for future projects.The report is based upon literature such as information taken from the developers website, existing reports with similar context, interviews with sellers of the software and interviews with people working in the building sector.The result of this report shows that there are several advantages with investing in a software that helps the management of a project and that it is something that should be taken under consideration instead of the existing method. Topcon is a clear favorite following the inquiries comparisons as done, when they deliver a complete system and not only a supplement to the current approach. Scanlaser are just in the beginning of its development, and is so far only out with an early version of the software, while Topcon has been brought further in development and therefore has more features in the program.

This paper investigates and explains the existence of different governance structures in the Swedish film industry. Using a theoretical framework of transaction cost economics, it is shown that trust follows from frequent production projects, affecting the distributors? control of producers, cinemas, video retailers and television. Control becomes more flexible, informal and less time consuming. Furthermore, the control of the distributors? relationship with television and cinemas proves to be multidimensional and affected by transaction activities, as well as by demands from previous parties in the value chain.

School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.

In recent time, agile methods have been devoted much attention, and the concept is widely used in the IT industry in particular. An increasing number of companies are interested in this way of working. The following report is the result of a study on the ability to create value for customers in business development through the use of agile methods. We ask what the advantages and limitations of agile methods are in the creation of customer value. Grounded Theory and an initial literature review was used to answer this question.