The problem of separating a non-rectangular foreground image from a background image is a classical problem in image processing and analysis, known as matting or keying. A common example is a film frame where an actor is extracted from the background to later be placed on a different background. Compositing of these objects against a new background is one of the most common operations in the creation of visual effects. When the original background is of non-constant color the matting becomes an under determined problem, for which a unique solution cannot be found. This thesis describes a framework for computing mattes from images with backgrounds of non-constant color, using Bayesian statistics.

Denna studie belyser behovet av alternativa synsätt och alternativa lösningar på hur bilismen och transportsektorn medverkar till miljöproblemen i samhället. Studien undersöker bilens roll för bilisten genom att lyfta fram förbindelsen bil-människa och hur denna förbindelse påverkar valet mellan bilen och kollektiva färdsätt i tre bostadsområden i Stockholmsregion. För att nå förståelse för förbindelsen bil-människa utgår studien från ett aktör-nätverksperspektiv. Metoden utgår från dels kvalitativa intervjuer och litteraturstudier.Under studiens gång uppstod ny förståelse för förbindelsen bil-människa. Denna cyborg är djupt förankrad i informanternas livssfär på grund av de starka skripts som är inskrivna i bilen vilka styr informanternas transportbeteende och överskuggar alternativa transportmedel.

The estate of Rämningstorp in the region of Västergötland in southern Sweden is administered by the holding trust company Skogssällskapet i Skövde. In 1999 measures were taken by Skogssällskapet to drain the stream Fredstorpsbäcken as a means to increase the forest productivity of the surrounding lands, which are situated on the estate of Rämningstorp. Almost immediately after the drainage, the streamwater turned turbid and a landowner downstream reported the issue to the county administrative board of the region. The aim of this thesis was firstly to analyse the suspended matter that appeared during summer/autumn and secondly to explain why it came to be. Initial hypotheses for the explanation to the greyish turbid water were that it was either 1) a chemical/biochemical precipitate, or 2) an bacterial/algal blooming.

The purpose of this thesis is to identify and analyse the view and consciousness of history present in essays written by Swedish high school students in 1877 and 1929. A theoretical framework was established in order to accomplish this, based on the theories of Peter Aronsson and Jörn Rüsen (through Lars Andersson Hult) that defines consciousness of history through a matrix that expresses a progression as well as a scaling complexity. Furthermore, the theories of Knut Kjelstadli and Magnus Hermansson Adler were adopted to establish two different types of view of history: one adhering to a view of history where groups and individuals are seen as integral to the progression of history, and the other explains historical process through more functional explanations, such as dependant on cultural and social structures.This framework erects ideal-types of different types of view and consciousness of history, and the thesis at hand strives to categorise the different kinds of view and consciousness of history found in the studied essays in accordance with these ideal-types through two different models based on the above mentioned theories.The findings presented here largely point to a view of history that is largely centered on an actor-oriented view of history, where individuals such as kings and generals are given a central position when historical events are being narrated, and is present in both 1877 and 1929, with some shifting nuances. As for the consciousness of history the lion part of the analysed texts can be seen adhering to a more traditional type of consciousness in 1877, although a slight shift can be seen towards a more complex type of consciousness in the texts from 1929..

The name of the thesis is?Istheprintedbook?sdeaththeauthorsbread??Astudyinhowthepublishinghouses?andtheauthors?relationshipschangeduetotheintroductionofthee--?book?Thee--?book,whichisadigitalcopyoftheprintedbook,hasbeenonthemarketforovertwodecades.However,itisnotuntilnowthatchangesarehappeningwithintheindustry,whichaffectsthedifferentactors.Amazonhasforexamplelaunchedane--?readerbythenameKindleonthemarketandApplehaslaunchedasurfpadbythenameiPad,bothwhichyouareabletoreade--?bookson.Thetechnologicalchangesthatarehappeningaffecttheactorswithinthebookindustryaswellasthestructureoftheindustry.Theresearchquestionofthisthesisis?owdothepublishinghouses?andtheauthors?relationshipswithinthebookindustrychangeduetotheintroductionofthee--?book??Actor--?networktheoryisusedtoinvestigatethis.Thetheoryincludesbothhumanandnon--?humanactors,whichtogethercancreateanetwork.Theactorswithinthenetworkconnectthemselvestoeachotherandtherebyformthenetwork.Thepurposeofthisthesisistocreateanunderstandingforhowactorsandtheirrelationshipswithinanestablishedindustrystructureareaffectedbydigitalisation.Toachievethis,semi--?structuredinterviewswereconductedwithpublishinghousesandauthors.Theboomofthee--?bookinlargepartdependsuponthetechnicaldevelopmentthathasoccurredandwhichhasintroducedsmartphones,e--?readers,surfpadsetceteraonthemarket.Moreactorswillariseinthebookindustryduetothedigitalisation,whichinturnwillaffecttheexistingrelationshipsofthepublishinghousesandtheauthors.Thepublishinghouseswillkeeptheirroleinthenetworksasakeyplayer,butcomeintocontactwithmoreactors.Theauthorsaregiventhechancetoself--?publishtheirbooksase--?books,whichmakethemcomeintocontactwithmoreactorsaswell.Asmoreactorsarise,thestructurewithintheindustrybecomesrelaxed.Hence,thepublishinghousesneedtoenrolthenewactorsinorderforthemtokeeptheirpositioninthenetwork..

As revenues from newspaper advertising plummet and their readers loyalty erode, the need to understand newspapers' changing environment and the actors involved in this change is growing in importance. Evidence is the entire industry is entering into a restructuring phase and that this restructuring is driven by the rapid consumer adaption of internet media.In this thesis I elaborate on "how the Internet is affecting the conditions for value creation in printed newspapers" and "how the Internet is affecting the conditions for other actors involved in the printed newspaper's value creation". These two questions land us in the bigger question of "Does the Internet act as a compliment or a substitute to the printed newspaper ".To answer these questions the printed newspaper is represented as the actor in the middle of content producers, advertisers and consumers. It is in its role as a means of distribution and as a co-ordinating force that we study the value creation of the printed newspaper. The empirical base of this thesis is a qualitative participant observation where the author during a period of time interacted and collected data from the open discussion in blogs by several of the industry's top influentials combined with material from seminars and reports on the current state of media.

The aim of the thesis is to examine how central collective actors in the Swedish subsystem of renewable fuels use their positions of power and influence to their own specific interests and needs. In particular the thesis looks at the problems of climate change and oil scarcity and how renewable fuels are described as a potential solution. Using agenda setting theory and Steven Lukes three dimensions of power as a framework, five actors are examined and analysed. The study has been done in two parts. In the first part policy documents are analysed concerning the actors general stance towards renewable fuels, and how this is communicated to the media, politicians and public.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.

This report has been done in collaboration with SCA Skog, Norrbottens Forest Management Area. The purpose of the survey is to try to find out what the forest owners who either live in Norrbottens Forest Management area or outside but has their forest holdings in the administrative area has the vision of SCA Forest and their forest services offered by the administration. But also to find out the presences of other timber buying players who procures timber in the administrative area. This study seeks to determine if there are deficiencies that may need changes or improvements to the prevailing conditions in Norrbottens management area. The literature study is about how to design a questionnaire based on what you want to know and what to consider in order to eliminate the problem of constructing a questionnaire. A questionnaire was sent to 400 randomly selected forest owners who have their forest holdings within SCA Forest Norrbotten Management Area. And of the 400, it was 181 respondents with 39 women and 138 men.

Several thousand years of human impact on the landscape in the form of cultivation is the reason to many nature- and culture values in the agricultural landscape today. Intensification and rationalization has led to vast monocultures and has forced many farms to close down. These trends have increased in the last years and constitute great threats to the values of the cultivation landscape. The purpose with the environmental objective A varied agricultural landscape is to protect these values. The environmental action plan of the municipality of Lund (LundaEko) 2006-2012 is built on the 16 national environmental objectives. The purpose with this paper is to put together material that the municipality of Lund can use in their work with modifying the local intermediate goals for the environmental objective A varied cultural landscape. The overall issue for this paper is ?What has happened with the state of the cultivation landscape in the municipality of Lund since LundaEko was approved in 2006?? The paper seeks to portrait the current conditions of the following fields: meadows and pastures, organic farming, exploitation threats to agricultural land, landscape elements with cultural values and species that are threatened.

Social networks have increased significantly during the latest decades, but what does the cooperation include and how does the network processes look like? Networks are not specific for communities in the 2000?s or for that matter human organisations, but the ability to build networks and introduce more actors to the organisation have become easier with today?s communication technology. The study is about the Norrköping Municipality membership in the transnational network Sweden Emilia Romagna Network (SERN). It gives an insight into how networking and cooperation can be seen by politicians and officials, based on mission statements and the reason why a municipality choose to participate in transnational networks. The study aims to examine how Norrköping Municipality uses the SERN network and what the network have resulted in since the beginning of the municipality membership in 2005. It is a qualitative study which involves interviews with officials and politicians from the Municipality of Norrköping and textual material from SERN?s strategy documents and policies.

The aim of this paper is to study how multiculturalism is expressed in the Swedish labour market policy. The method used for the investigation is a discourse analysis which study social and political processes in the society as created through language. The perspective of the discourse analysis is a social construction that considers that language is a social production created in a discursive way. It produces and reflects social process in the language.By using theories of national identity and multiculturalism we aim to investigate how multiculturalism is expressed in the labour market policy. With this method we aim to analyze the discourse of a political report made 2008 by the current government about integration strategies in Sweden.

For the last ten years Internet has become more popular and is now used by most Swedes every day.  Internet has made it possible for many people to access a great deal of information about news all day long. Internet has also made it possible for people to create their own news and comment on happenings as they are taking place. One way to do this is to start your own blog, which is a kind of diary where you can publish your own thoughts about politics and news.In Sweden the media is often referred to as the third governmental power since the media is examining the government and people in power positions and bringing the people as consumers of news closer to the government. There is a theory called agenda setting that says that the media is an actor that shapes the political issues discussed by the people and politicians.In this essay I have used the agenda setting theory and linked it together with the Medias references to blogs in their news. This I have done to see if the media might be influenced by blogs.

I dagens samhälle tas miljöfrågor allt oftare upp i den allmänna och politiska debatten och ett aktivt miljöarbete är något som i allt högre grad krävs av företag från bland annat myndigheter och miljöorganisationer. Stålindustrin är inget undantag och får därför ofta kritik för att de åtgärder som vidtas inte är tillräckliga.Inom stålindustrin genomför företag ofta investeringar för att minska sin miljöpåverkan trots att avkastning på det investerade kapitalet uteblir. Den institutionella organisationsteorin förklarar dessa handlingar som direkta konsekvenser av likriktning. Det fenomen som studeras i studien är spridningen av miljömedvetenhet eftersom denna anses ligga till grund för investeringarna i miljöåtgärder inom den svenska stålindustrin. Formatet för studien är en fallstudie där den empiriska datainsamlingen skett genom tryckt material och intervjuer.Det kan konstateras att det studerade företagets miljöarbete påverkas i stor utsträckning av andra aktörer inom det organisatoriska fält som företaget tillhör.

Since the 9/11-attacks several nations have been confronted with a new international threat, its nature traces back to the political- and religious- radical movements of the 20th century Cold War. Ever since, various states have been under threat by terrorist organizations around the world due to mainly participating in worldwide counter-terrorist interventions created by western alliances. In Sweden, amongst other countries, the state took security-precautions that would imply total control of information throughout the territorial borders. The assigned proposition was accepted by the Swedish parliament in June 18th 2008, after this date wild spread criticism was still in effect ever since the Swedish government first publicly announced the proposition in May 8th 2007. This study emphasizes on understanding why the Swedish government chose to present this proposition to parliament, in order to complete this task the study will present the motives and the alleged threats that were the core of the proposition and its value-maximizing goal of creating a new surface for Swedish homeland security.