The aim of this thesis is to examine whether law reforms in the detailed planning process can be an aspect that gets in conflict with the citizens rights to participate in the Swedish planning through dialogue, and how five chosen municipalities are working with citizen participation. To be able to answer the aim of the thesis a literature study and five semi-structured interviews was performed in purpose to get wide-ranging information from municipal officials working with detailed planning handling. Law changes that aims to make the detailed planning process more efficient has been implemented partly to satisfy the needs of dwellings since the detailed planning process among master builders seems to be slow and inefficient, which to the them means higher costs. The requirement on having a detailed planning program was taken away when the new planning law was adopted year 2011. The planning program was including a moment of citizen dialogue. The case studied municipalities have not been affected in this law change arguing that it?s still possible to bring a program if needed.

The aim of the present study was to investigate high school students? ways of discussing smoking and prevention of smoking. A total of eight high school students participated in the study. Two focus groups were used to collect data, one of smokers and one of nonsmokers. Data were analyzed with inductive content analysis.

Booth for operational planning of harvesting and for long term planning, data is today collected manually. Intensive objective field inventories are usually too expensive. To enhance optimisation of timber flow from forest to industry Moore efficient methods for measuring tree stems of standing trees are needed. The performance of terrestrial laser scanners have improved and these could possibly be used within forestry in the future. The objective of this study was to validate how a terrestrial laser scanner could be used to measure stem diameter, and to test how the errors depend on distance from the scanner and tree species. Two plots (one pine and one spruce) were used for this study.

The discovery and excavation of Long Barrows has been one of the major developments in the understanding of the Early Neolithic in Southern Scandinavia during the last decade. The Long Barrows are one of the oldest monumental burial forms that we see in northern Europe in the neolithic. They are also the first example of a common idea that is connected to a monumental burial form amongst the people. In this essay I attempt to show that there actually are quite a large number of Long Barrows in Scandinavia that show similarities with Long Barrows in well-known areas such as Kujavia (Poland) and Pommerania (Germany/Poland), in both architecture and location in the landscape. I also scrutinise some theories regarding this phenomenon and discuss, and i some cases, criticise them.

 Problem: For what type of investors are index funds versus exchange-traded index funds best suited?Objective: The purpose of the paper is to determine how an index fund or an exchange-traded index fund (ETF) suits different types of investors with different requirements in terms of time frame, investment size and purpose of investment. The comparison is based on fees and trade practicality. This is going to describe the advantages and disadvantages with the two different financial instruments.Method: The study is a comparative study using two methods; one of which is a case study, the other is a qualitative interview. The case study focuses on fees and is made on an exchange traded fund (XACT OMXS30) and a simple equity index fund (Erik Pensér equity enhanced index).

The purpose of this thesis is to ascertain the main determinable factors of Swedish SMEs capital structure decisions and to investigate whether existing capital structure theories are applicable on Swedish SME financing. We have used panel data to run regressions of various capital structure determinants on three measures of capital structure; short- term debt, long-term debt and total debt. We found that growth opportunities, profitability and age are the most important capitalstructures determinants for our sample. Firm size shows a small explanatory result but the effective tax rate and the asset tangibility do not seem to explain the capital structure at all. Thematurity matching principle is considered significant..

The purpose of this study is to investigate how an aging population affects rural municipalities? ability to meet future welfare needs, as well as how place marketing and strategies are used to manage demographic changes. The study is based on a qualitative case study of Herrljunga municipality, where interviews with municipal officials and document analysis form the empirical basis.The results show that the municipality is characterized by a growing elderly population and the outmigration of younger people, which contributes to challenges in welfare and skills supply, particularly within health and social care. The study shows that these demographic changes, combined with limited resources, have an impact on the municipality?s ability to plan long-term.

Uppsatsen behandlar ämnet ?Hållbar landsbygdsutveckling? och syftar till att utreda vilka planeringsstrategier som kan tillämpas i tätorten Grebo i landsbygdskommunen Åtvidaberg.

The municipalities of Sweden have a great responsibility when it comes to adapt the physical planning to a more sustainable development. The development of the society depends upon the growth of new communities and other public services, but to build new communities in a long-term sustainable manner you need good methods and guidance. This study presents four sustainability certification scheme intended to improve and adapt the planning, implementation and performance of new communities and infrastructure project to more sustainable methods based on economic, ecological and social sustainability. These systems are the latest versions of environmental classifications and similar rating schemes, but with a broader focus since they also include the social aspect of sustainability.This study aims to investigate what role sustainability certification schemes can play in local planning for sustainable development. The study compares the certification systems criteria to the tools and goals that the Swedish municipalities have been provided with, to lead efforts towards a more sustainable society.

The aim of the study was to examine collaboration and professional perspectives on the best interest of the child in regards to working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Firstly, our result show that counselling is available for the unaccompanied children from case workers, staff, school counsellors and emergency psychiatric care. All of the participants in this study describe the need for long-term counselling for unaccompanied children, however, providing the long-term counselling is not the primary purpose of the organisations in question. Therefore an additional service-provider working with counselling is a necessity. Secondly, the study explores the participants? professional perspectives on the best interest of the child.

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, with significantimplications for the financial stability of insurance markets. This study analyses how nature-related insurancepayouts and required solvency capital may develop over the period 2025?2099 under three emissions scenarios: RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, and what this means for the long-term sustainability of insurance as an economic institution. Using Monte Carlo simulation of a non-homogeneous Cram?r-Lundberg model, claimfrequency is modelled as a negative binomial process calibrated against SMHI's climate projections, and claimsizes are approximated by a lognormal distribution fitted to Swedish insurance data (NATY, 2015?2023).The results show that accumulated insurance payouts amount to SEK 96.7 billion under RCP 2.6, SEK 106.0billion under RCP 4.5 and SEK 131.9 billion under RCP 8.5.

Traditional financial management has lately been criticized, since it gives inadequate and unilateral information for decisions and strategy of the operation. The purpose of this essay is to investigate if a balanced scorecard is able to work together with a budget and become a stronger control system for the management. Essential theory underlies the gathering of data as well as the analysis, and the empirical investigation is based on personal interviews. The conclusions drawn from my analysis are that two parallel control systems could complement each other?s weaknesses.

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, with significantimplications for the financial stability of insurance markets. This study analyses how nature-related insurancepayouts and required solvency capital may develop over the period 2025?2099 under three emissions scenarios: RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, and what this means for the long-term sustainability of insurance as an economic institution. Using Monte Carlo simulation of a non-homogeneous Cram?r-Lundberg model, claimfrequency is modelled as a negative binomial process calibrated against SMHI's climate projections, and claimsizes are approximated by a lognormal distribution fitted to Swedish insurance data (NATY, 2015?2023).The results show that accumulated insurance payouts amount to SEK 96.7 billion under RCP 2.6, SEK 106.0billion under RCP 4.5 and SEK 131.9 billion under RCP 8.5.

`When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has´: `I have had, you see, to resort more and more to very small, almost invisible pleasures, little extras....You´ve no idea how great one becomes with these little details, it´s incredible how one grows. ´ The aim of this master thesis is to find words and expressions that can accompany city phenomenas as well as the people wandering through the space which is defiened as city. Through this tentative search a new term was found namely Urban Settler Marks. This term started a journey and an attempt to theoretisize why people have a need for various spaces to put their Urban Settlers Marks onto. My focus was drawn to electrical boxes in the urban environment because of their ambigious nature.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.