Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

Abstract Title: PR consultants and bloggers; a win-win situation? -  A study of PR consultants? new adaptations in the labour market due to the emergence of fashion bloggers. Authors: Cecilia Girell, Sandra Kjellstro?m Tutor: Ylva Ekstro?mPurpose: With the expansion of the Internet, fashion bloggers have gotten more power. A few companies have understood this powerful and reasonable cheap marketing channel. Despite this, most companies still feel powerless, but what has happened to the work of PR consultants in this constant changing media environment? The ones whos purpose is to act as intermediaries between companies and various media channels.

Due to the fact that bottled water has negative impact on the environment,Elite Hotel hasdecided to stop serving bottled water in their restaurants. Since Swedish tap water is regarded tohave great quality,Elite Hotel wants to look at the possibilities to carbonate their own sparklingwater and serving it in fancy carafes. This Master of Science thesis is about constructing a costefficient water carbonator system that suits Elite Hotel?s need specification. This thesis alsocovers other water refinement criteria.The work has been divided into three parts.

The energy that the earth receives from the sun hourly has potential to cover a year?s energy demand in the world. Further, this type of energy is environmentally friendly, natural and free of cost. This report covers solar energy in an urban environment and consists of a case study of installations of photovoltaic cells in a part of the city of Stockholm. It is mainly the economic aspects that are covered but there is also a discussion about the practical consequences and the sustainability as a result of integration of solar energy in an urban environment. The aim of the study is to present results from economic calculations for utilization of solar energy in chosen buildings in Kungsholmen in Stockholm.

The overall aim of the study was to give an insight into the life of a girl attending a program for preparation for further studies. More explicitly it is the aim of this study to examine what line the girls take to and how they experience support in school and if the offered support is adjusted to the needs of the girls?.To capture the complexity of the girls? experiences a world view approach was used. To be able to take part of the girls? experiences, a qualitative survey method was chosen, built upon individual half structured interviews with six girls attending the last year of upper secondary school.

This master thesis is made in co-operation with the Department of Forest Management and Products at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Uppsala and the Forestry Association in Stockholm. The purpose of the Master thesis was to describe how pre-schools in Sweden use forests and green areas, and to understand how different factors can affect the use of the nature. The purpose of the interviews was to create a picture of attitudes and routines of the pre-schools, in the matter of visiting the nature. The thesis is built on interviews where fifteen pre-schools in five large cities around Sweden participated. Among these pre-schools, five of them worked with special focus on nature, while the other ten did not have any particular focus connected to their activity.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to examine how the population living in Christiania considers their residential area in relation to the surrounding society, and why you as an individual choose to live there. We have used the qualitative method and we have performed interviews with a total of six persons. We have used Tönnies two notions regarding gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and Goffmans theory about stigma. We choose these theories because we thought that they were most relevant for our study. Our question at issue is: Why does a person seek to live in an alternative society, with different norms in comparison to the majority society? Through our interview persons we learned their stories and their opinions considering their residential area and we concluded that Christiania differs from the remaining society in several ways.

We have different kinds of signal processing everywhere around us in our everyday life, in our cellphones, when we are listening to music, watching TV etc. This makes signal processing a very interesting and important technical area, where the demand of skilled engineers sets the limit of what is possible.Working with signal processing requires in-depth knowledge in areas such as mathematics, physics, electronics, and other related areas. For this, it has traditionally been demanded by a talented developer to also master the advanced programming languages such as C / C + + and Assembler.This has begun to change; today there are several companies that offer graphical development environments for signal processing, environments where programming skills are not needed anymore, and the focus can be on signal processing instead.The goal with this project is to build a corresponding graphical development environment to reach an understanding of what is required of these systems, and also to grasp what opportunities that are available within graphic programming. Inspiration for the work has partly arise from some of the tools available on the market, and partly from previous theses that have been written about graphic programming.The challenge lies in creating a program that can execute signal diagrams in real time from given signal blocks, and be able to handle feedback loops in an efficient way and to do so at the lowest "cost" in terms of clock cycles as possible. This should also be compared against to code, compile and run a complete signal diagram directly.To increase the usability it should also be possibility to externally manage in real time the parameters of the signal diagram during execution.The interface is a separate program, which is to some extent similar to Matlab Simulink, where a signal diagram is drawn up graphically by connecting wires between different signal blocks.

The search for antibiotic compounds from the natural environment has been going on for seven decades, ever since penicillin entered the market and antibiotic treatments became routine. The evolutionary pressure put on the pathogenic microorganisms induced a rapid spreading of naturally occurring resistance genes, leaving only the option of finding new antibiotics to treat the resistant pathogens. Microorganisms have been extensively mined for their biosynthetic abilities to produce biologically active compounds. To date, more than 23 000 microbial natural products have been discovered. The Actinomycetales are ubiquitous bacteria that have been used for antibiotic discovery for more than half a century, and over 10 000 natural products have been identified from the order.

The last decades have shown increased nitrogen leeching from soil to water recipients. This is inSweden mainly due to over-manuring of agriculture land, effectivization of drainage systems and thedeclining extent of wetlands. The accumulated amount of nitrogen in water doesn?t only make itunsuitable for use by humans and cattle, but also decreases the biological diversity as well as negativelyaffect tourism and fish industry. In the most severe cases shallow maritime grounds can be completelydepleted of oxygen due to decomposition of the increased amount algae and plankton growth.This study have the aim to describe and quantify the nitrogen leeching from the Genevad drainagebasin, located in southern Halland, Sweden.

Title: A Business Perspective on Reducing the Climate Impact from Tetra Paks Transportations of Goods. Authors: Pär BerglundSebastian Lyngström Supervisors: Lars J Nilsson, Environmental and Energy Systems, Lund UniversityNils Månsson, Department of Business Administration, Lund University Problem Analysis: Increased awareness concerning climate change will put pressure on companies to reduce their climate impact. Problems arise when trying to reduce the impact from transportations due to companies? limited control on forwarding agents and difficulties measuring the emissions. Purpose: From a business perspective, this report will enable a reduction of the climate impact that arises from Tetra Paks transportation of goods.

With the prospect of future construction on the Skutskär Pulp Mill property, Stora Enso Fine Paper has initiated an investigation of soil contaminants and a risk assessment of these contaminants. A soil and groundwater investigation has therefore been conducted on an open area of about 16 000 square meters, situated between the current wood room and digester house. To be able to integrate this study into an investigation for the whole industrial property, the study has been carried out as a phase 2 study according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency?s Methods of Inventories of Contaminated sites (MIFO).The site investigation has involved soil and groundwater sampling, together with the analysis of heavy metals and organic contaminants. The degree of hazard posed by the contaminants, the level of contamination, the potential for migration of the contaminants, as well as the degree to which protection of human health and the environment is required in the area, have been weighed together for an overall risk assessment of the area with regard to human health and the environment.The investigated area was built up by filling in the coastal waters.

Aquatic organisms are usually not exposed to single substances but rather to mixtures of toxicants in streams located in agricultural areas. The transport of pesticides used in the agricultural area in Sweden is monitored with continuous environmental supervision every year. During 2002-2008 an average of 10 pesticides were found in each sample and 40% of the samples contained substances with concentrations higher than the Water Quality Standards. Chemical risk management is normally based on single-test evaluations. A problem when assessing mixture toxicities is that the constituents and concentrations of pollutants in the environment vary greatly.

The release of green house gases and the environmental impacts humans have on the environment are huge and might cause irreversible changes to our earth. Meat is considered to have large impacts on the environment, especially beef meat and therefore there have lately been considerable discussions on the sustainable level of meat consumption and production. The main goal with this thesis is to study sustainable meat production and meat consumption in the county of Dalarna in Sweden. Indicators for sustainable meat production and meat consumption were developed and applied on three cases. Interviews were carried out with a municipality in the region that represents the consumer and three beef farmers that represents the producers.

Children at the age of six, has since 1991 been allowed to start their tuition in the Swedish school system. Studies reveal that; the first school year (preschool) can be a stressful task dueto the new environment, new friendships and higher expectations.The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how the teachers perceive their own role in the transitioning process from preschool to school. This purpose required a method of qualitative complexion and therefore qualitative interviews were used. The material is based on four interviews with four different teachers. The teachers were asked the same question considering; the transition from preschool to school from a pupil point of view, their own role in that transition and their opinions on different educational tools.