Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

The role of the quality manager has evolved from being a quality controller to work with a more global business. Within many organizations in Sweden, however, the traditional role of the quality manager's remains and the tasks categorized as quality control still takes up most of the quality manager's time. The survey conducted as part of this master thesis shows that the quality manager in most businesses has multiple roles in addition to the role of quality manager, which can create a role conflict. One consequence of this is that each improvement is not given priority due to time constraints. Although the importance of a clear and committed leadership is the key for succeeding as the quality manager.

Water related problems are highlighted as a challenge to sustainable development and the topic of forests and water is gaining increased attention worldwide. Governing forest and water is a complex issue, as the interactions are affected by policies and actors from multiple levels and sectors. In Sweden, forests cover much of the land and forestry is an important land-use, inevitably impacting the water in the landscape. This study aims to understand and explain the existing governance framework around forestry and water in Sweden. Based on the Policy Arrangement Approach, the study?s research questions focused on the actors involved, the formal and informal rules, the resources and power structures and the discourses related to forestry and water in Sweden.

Previous studies have shown that there is a relationship between voluntary disclosure and analysts' forecast accuracy. However, there has been no research conducted specifically on bridges. Bridges contain information on how components such as price, volume, foreign exchange rates and acquisitions have impacted the financial performance between two periods. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the usage of bridges in quarterly financial information of companies listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. We provide a descriptive mapping of bridges and find that 30 out of 268 companies are presenting bridges as a part of their voluntary disclosures, with large firms being the most frequent users.

The purpose of this essay is to study the two cases ?The hijacking of a bus in Årdal? & ?The double murder in Ljungsbro? from media ethics aspects.  The aim for this study is to clear up if the the Swedish newspapers have reported according to the mediaethic rules and to see if there is any differences between the newspapers reporting. The following theories has been used to reach the objective: the journalism task, news values, the liberty of press and speach, media ethical rules and discursive discrimination. The study has used a critical discourse method formed by Teun a. van Dijk to analyse the material, mainly through macro- and microstructures.

The objective of this paper is to describe and analyze female irregular immigrants and their experience of how relationships with other people affect their lives and identity.A qualitative method is used in the study, because my main purpose is to analyse the respondents? lives and life experiences. The analysis is based on a symbolic interactionism perspective. The results are also analyzed based on previous research and the concepts underlying the paper; irregular immigrants, discrimination, power and identity.In summary, the respondents have a clear picture of how they live and experience their relationship to others and themselves and how this affects their lives and identity.Their experiences affect their lives and influence their behaviour and identity when they interact with others. Their own view of their situation means that they are afraid to seek care or report sexual abuse, threats or other similar conditions.

SummaryAimThe study examines a theoretical model developed to capture cyclist´s perceptions of the route environment. The survey focuses on if level two and three in the theoretical model captures what it´s intended to do. More specific we ask ourselves how the three appraisals (unsafe/safe by traffic reasons, stimulating/inhibiting route environment, unsafe/safe by other reasons) in the model´s second level relates among themselves and if these three appraisals can capture the degree of environmental well-being/unwell-being in the model´s third level. The questions were: Do the three appraisals differ among themselves? What is the difference/-s in such cases? And, is there a correlation between any of the three appraisals and environmental unwell-being/well-being? What is the correlation in such case? MethodThe gathering of data was done through questionnaires.

Att bli diagnostiserad med en kronisk sjukdom som Multipel Skleros (MS) kan vara förödande både fysiskt och psykiskt. Det beror mycket på hur personen med MS hanterar sin nya situation. Studier visar att det finns många sätt att hantera sjukdomen på. Detta kan sammanfattas som copingfaktorer. Syftet med denna studie var att, baserat på självbiografier, beskriva utmärkande copingfaktorer hos personer med Multipel Skleros.

AbstractSierra Leone is a very poor country in Africa. Botswana is another country, that has a similar history and the same deposit; diamonds. Botswana has reached economic growth and democracy and Sierra Leone has not.The purpose with this study is to explain why Botswana is more democratic and has reached a better result economic than Sierra Leone.The questions in this study are:What explains the democratic and the economic results in Sierra Leone and Botswana?* Dahl?s institutions that furthers a polyarchy?* Gunnarsson?s and Rojas? institutional explanations?* Diamond?s and Morlino?s ?rule of law??* Other explanations or a combination of the above-mentioned explanations?The method that has been used in this study is a comparative case study with a qualitative contents analysis. The result is that it?s hard to say that one explanation is the right one.

This Masters thesis work describes a comparison between two different methods for estimation of the down channel (base station to mobile subscriber) in Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA). The first estimation method, Optimal Feed-forward Channel Estimation (OFCE), is a conventional method that bases the estimates on data that is known to both sender and receiver, so called pilots. The second method, Decision Directed Channel Estimation (DDCE), is an elaboration of OFCE. It also uses user data for estimation. Simulations show that DDCE, in comparison to OFCE, does not attain an improvement in signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) for high bit error rates (BER).

Vi har genom kvalitativa intervjuer valt att undersöka fotbollsklubben Athletic Bilbaos rekryteringspolicy som innebär att klubben endast använder sig utav spelare med baskisk härkomst. Syftet med vår studie var att diskutera och analysera huruvida detta speciella koncept eventuellt är diskriminerande utifrån ett moraliskt, ett juridiskt och ett politiskt perspektiv. Vidare har vi sökt svar i de ledande svenska idrottsorganisationerna om huruvida det skulle kunna vara genomförbart i Sverige med en sådan policy. För att få en ökad förståelse för problematiken har vi valt att arbeta efter en rad teoretiska begrepp såsom etnicitet, lokal och social identitet samt globalisering. Vår slutsats är att problematiken kring föreningens policy och Baskiens politiska ställning komplicerar beslutsfattandet i diskrimineringsfrågan och att en rättspraxis från EG-domstolen krävs för att nå ett klargörande i fallet.

This thesis aims to investigate the information effects of fair value accounting in Nordic real estate companies. As a consequence of the mandatory IFRS adoption in the European Union in 2005, listed Nordic companies are allowed to recognize investment property at fair value in accordance with IAS 40. Theory suggests that fair value accounting should lower information asymmetry. Therefore, this study aims to examine correlation between fair value accounting of investment property and information asymmetry on the stock market. To investigate this, we use bid-ask spread as a proxy for information asymmetry and examine Nordic real estate companies before and after the implementation of IFRS.

In printed text, sound is a somewhat forgotten aspect. The recitation of text is vital in areas like poetry and oratory, but still has no distinct technique of being communicated. Emphasis of a word might be expressed through italics, but no canonic character set or system for vocal delivery of texts exists. With this essay we are creating a foundation for a development of such a character set or system. By studying existing visualisations of sound and comparing these with semiotic and perception-based theories we obtain useful insights for a prospective system for visualisations of vocal sounds.We conclude that the aspects of sound one wants to visualise must be carefully defined since the viewer cannot process infinite amounts of information.

The purpose of this essay is to study the two cases ?The hijacking of a bus in Årdal? & ?The double murder in Ljungsbro? from media ethics aspects.  The aim for this study is to clear up if the the Swedish newspapers have reported according to the mediaethic rules and to see if there is any differences between the newspapers reporting. The following theories has been used to reach the objective: the journalism task, news values, the liberty of press and speach, media ethical rules and discursive discrimination. The study has used a critical discourse method formed by Teun a. van Dijk to analyse the material, mainly through macro- and microstructures.

Fusarium graminearum is one of the most important pathogens on cereals and causes major crop losses around the world. The most cultivated cereal in Sweden is winter wheat. F. graminearum produces both sexual and asexual spores for dispersal. Multiple factors affect the production of these spores.