The relationship between free trade and the environment is often considered conflicting and the debates surrounding it are infected. My thesis deal with this conflict and how environmental concerns are integrated in three regional free trade agreements, North American Free Trade Agreement, The common market of the southern cone (MERCOSUR) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). I point out how the organizations differ from each other in this respect and I present a possible explanation to why they differ. The explanation is founded on the theory of the environmental Kuznets curve and that environmental concerns will depend on which level of development the member states in the organizations have. To judge and rank the organizations I have composed a model based on a pre-existing description of the trade and environment conflict.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study how university teachers look upon information literacy, what they consider the professional role of the academic librarian and how they value cooperation between the two professions. The methodology is based on qualitative interviews and is inspired by phenomenography. A limited number of qualitative interviews has been carried out in order to describe the attitudes and opinions of the university teachers related to my issue. I have also used the results of two theoreticians, Monica Hansen and Berth Danermark, who have studied cooperation between different professional groups.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

During the 1920?s the town of Bollnäs had the ambition to expand. The expansion included a merger with Björkhamre and the colonization of unused areas, e.g. the area around Onbacken. The archaeologist Gustaf Hallström came to Bollnäs to investigate an ancient tomb located on Onbacken.

The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

As a result of today`s competitive situation, the demand on the rapid development of research has increased. Both universities and companies are realizing the importance of a functioning and well-developed cooperation. A close collaboration and communication between universities and the business community has in many studies been shown to be very important for business development and knowledge transfer. The purose was to examine how communication and collaboration between universities and industry can be developed and strenghthen on the basis of innovative thinking. In order to initially identify the perceived problems the authors studied how communication and cooperation manifests itslelf today between the two parties, what does not work and how the existing tools for communication and collaboration look like today.

All inclusive travel has become a popular way to travel abroad. When tourists pay for everything in advance their need for contact with the local people will be reduced. The consequences of this can be dissatisfaction from the local people as they are left out and do not share the financial benefits created by tourism. During the purchasing cycle of an all inclusive travel, it is possible that the tour operator can influence a sustainable development.The aim of this paper is to compare how a large and a small tour operator in their purchase of all inclusive holidays interacts with local players to create sustainable development, thereby creating a surplus value to the customer. The hypothesis is that the amount of knowledge and application of this knowledge regarding sustainable development differs in the purchase process between large and small tour operators.This paper was carried out as a case study.

När ungdomar startar verksamhet som temadagar och antidrogfestivaler för sin närhet och sina jämnåriga skapar de en tryggare miljö. Bara vetskapen om att jag som ung kan göra något åt det som jag tycker är viktigt att arbeta med, kan nog skapa en trygghet hos individen. Vi vet idag att med hjälp av rollspel lär sig ungdomar att förstå olika sociala spel och händelser i samhället. Genom värderingsövningar lär sig unga människor nya sätt att förstå sig själva men också sin närmiljö. Detta ger individen en starkare självkänsla men också en starkare grund att stå på då de arbetar med drogförebyggande arbete.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

Att bevarandet av biologisk mångfald är en grundpelare för att nå en hållbar utveckling enades världens länder om i Konventionen om biologisk mångfald (CBD) som upprättades under toppmötet i Rio de Janeiro 1992. I konventionen förespråkas den s.k. ekosystemansatsen (EA), vilket är en strategi som innebär en helhetssyn på ekosystem. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka i vilken grad EA tillämpas på nationell och regional nivå. Frågan är också om EA är en bra utgångspunkt för att upprätthålla biologisk mångfald på landskapsnivå samt vad som kan öka tillämpningen av EA på regional nivå.

Civil-military relations ? conditions for cooperationAbstract: Civil-military cooperation is a branch of current interest, both in studies and research. The importance has also increased after the government´s demands in a more developed and efficient coordination of national contribution to international peace support operations. Several studies show that there is a lack of ability to cooperate between different levels of command and other actors. The Swedish tradition of state administration is strong and the responsibility to cooperate lies within the hands of the different authorities.