The purpose of this study was to estimate the removal of biomass in connection with thinning operations in young stands that are dominated by small diameter trees. The economy of such operations depends on the products generated as well as the performance of the harvesting systems. Conversion tables designed to predict the outcome based on harvesting method was another goal of this study. Removal of biomass affects the nutrient composition of the site. Therefore it is a purpose that this study will provide researchers with some variables that can be utilized when studying this aspect. Trees were harvested and divided into bunches based on diameter.

European cities of today are under the challenge to find ways to stay competitive and flourish in a rapidly changing world, where the old patterns of centrality and periphery not necessarily holds true. New and improved communication networks, a changed political geography in Europe, and the globalisation of not only the financial and industrial markets but also to a certain extent the globalisation of people, have all led to great challenges for cities and regions.In a changed spatial reality the classic monocentric models are challenged by newer models of urbanisation. The polycentric urban region is one such model which has been used to describe urban regions like the Randstad in the Netherlands and the Rhein-Ruhr region in Germany. Regions which lack the single dominant central city of the monocentric models of old, and instead shows a high degree of more equal-sized and sometimes more specialised cities in regional cooperation. The polycentric urban region is in that aspect a possible model for how other urbanised regions in Europe may act to be able to position themselves as attractive urban regions and regional hubs in the European urban network.Polycentric urban regions are not a universal solution, though.

In Sweden approximately ten percent of all children grows up in a family where at least one parent is having an alcohol related addiction. Since 1998 the development of group activities for children in this situation has been immense. The aim of group activities is to break the child's isolation and make them feel that they are not lonely in their experiences, give them knowledge about addiction and relive the pressure of guilt and responsibility.In a comparative study we examined studied how two different group activity models one with the conception of illness and one without, use the children's network to support the group process. The aim was also to find each models definition of the "normal family", since we understood the groupactivity as a part in the normalization process. We reached our aim through interviews with group leaders and by literature studies.

Regional European Offices with the purpose to represent regions and municipalities in the EU-system have had a substantial expansion over the last years. One example is the North Sweden European Office for the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten, consisting of seven different headmen who are representing both the private sector as well as the public system. This diverse leadership representation makes North Sweden a very good example on a so called Quango, organisations that stand under simultaneous influence from both public and private sectors. These Quangos opens up new possibilities to solve public problems, but they also bring together two different working models which is not always easy to handle for a Quango. According to earlier surveys some characteristic Quango problems within North Sweden exist, for example the ability to prioritize and thereby be as effective as possible.

We have examined how the dependence, identity and social bonds affect customer loyalty and attachment to a training centre. The method used is a survey on SATS Karlstad city where 128 respondents were asked, out of which 118 surveys were used in the final analysis. The data was analyzed using ANCOVA and multiple regressions.The result showed significant relationships on attachment between identity and dependence. Social bonds had no significant effect on the attachment a member have towards training centre. Customer loyalty was measured by how long the individual has been a member and his or her training frequency.

The aim of this study was to look into why children receive the interventions contact person and contact family. This was done by studying case-files. The main questions were:-       How common is it that there are reasons for the intervention linked to parents and which are the most common?-       How common is it that there are reasons for the intervention and problems linked to children and which are the most common?-       Is there any indication of connections between reasons, age, gender or type of intervention? If so, what are the connections?The main results of this study were that most of the children lived with a single mother, often with a weak social network, and in need of relief. It was more common that reasons were linked to children then parents and the most common reasons indicated a need for an extra adult.

This report discusses a method to detect divers in harbour environments usingpassive acoustic detection. The goal was to achieve as high detection as possiblewithout having too high false alarm rate. A short execution time was also desirable.By using the characteristic of an inhalation a band-pass filter was applied to the signalto improve the signal to noise ratio. After the filtering an energy estimation of thesignal was made. This energy estimation was later used in a frequency analysis, whichcould tell us if there were enough energy in the frequencies that correspond to adivers breathing frequency.

The purpose of this study is to examine the accessibility with public transportation in the case of the Umeå Region in northern Sweden. This is done by GIS network analysis where both access to transit stops, as well as access by public transport from stops to destinations is examined. An accessibility index is created from transit frequency and travel times to destinations. The results is compared with population register data to calculate what shares of the population has which levels of accessibility with public transportation. In the Umeå Region there are different levels of accessibility by public transport for different parts of the region, where transit stops in the most densely populated areas has the highest levels of accessibility, as well as stations along the railroads.

The aim of the study was to investigate how a significant other of threepersons with Parkinson?s disease experienced the communication in conversation. Astructured interview and analysis of a video recorded conversation was performed.The questions in the interview were aimed at mapping the significant others?experience of communicative problems, their frequency, degree and conversationstrategies used by a significant other in conversation. The result showed that thesignificant others? experienced problems in communication related to the disease inseveral different areas for two of three participants with Parkinson?s disease.

The linear televison have dominated the supply of moving pictures, but this is about to change with the possibility to consume it via the Internet.I n this thesis we have studied how the two Swedish tv-network companies, SVT and TV4 are working with their web TV and if their online services have affected the linear TV. To limit the size of the study we chose two network companies that provide the most popular tv channels and web services in Sweden. To gather data from these two companies we conducted qualitative interviews with people at the networks. We came to the conclusion that SVT and TV4 doesn't find that their web TV services (called SVT Play and TV4 Play) are competing with the linear TV. They rather regard them as assets to broaden their services.

Abstract The increased focus on social capital theory has made its way into labour economics. This has led to the creation of a vast literature about the use of networks and informal search methods in the labour-market, a literature that to some extent also deals with immigrants search behaviour and their relatively high unemployment rate. Characteristic for the literature in the area is the lack of analysis of actual networks. Which types of contacts do these networks contain; how are the networks used in the labour-market; and which type of network generates a high amount of social capital. These questions are important for the general understanding of how social capital functions, within the labour-market, but also for the understanding of how immigrants use their networks in order to find themselves jobs.

Use of computers and computer networks is nowadays a part of everyday life. You do not use them only at home when you sit at you computer, but you can use them all the time everywhere. This can involve everything from surf to any website when you are at home, to checking your email on your mobile when you are on your way to work. Most people do not think about how it really works when they try to access a web page by typing the address into their browser, but something that most people probably notice is how long it can sometimes take to access a web page.All items which are directly connected to the IP network have a unique IP address that is used to make it possible to communicate. The IP address is either a period separated sequence of digits representing 32 bits or a colon separated sequence of digits representing 128 bits, depending on whether the address is an IPv4 or IPv6 address.

Because social media is personal and reaches users directly, it has become an important means of communication for companies trying to reach out to their audience (Nygren & Wadbring, 2013). Especially the possibility of interactivity has been discussed as social media's big advantage. But how much two-way communication is actually possible on social media? This is a quantitative study that focuses on how Swedish Facebook users in the ages of 16-25 interact with companies on the social network. The aim was to contribute with increased information and knowledge about how the users mentioned above interact with the companies as well as how the users perceive the companies communication and presence on Facebook.

During this project a photographer and an illustrator have explored if a single image can communicate a bigger whole, in this case a movie. By analysing five motion pictures with visual communication theories, semiotics and colour symbolism as tools, ten images was created. These images do not only consist of symbols, but also communicate the overall feeling and colour scheme of the movie.These images have been tested in interviews with six individuals, who, except for one, work with visual communication of some kind. They have studied the communication skills of the images from their own experiences.The result of the interviews showed that all images could not communicate a movie. One reason for this was that only a few of the test persons had seen two of the selected movies.

Near Field Communication, NFC, is a short-range wireless communication technology that enables data exchange between devices in a secure way. A NFC phone has the potential to enable the convergence of wallet, phone and keys, but as many other technological innovations, the launch is struggling. We have discovered that technological innovation is only the first step. For an innovation to be adapted, there need to be business model innovation too. Many actors form the ecosystem of NFC and the business model for each service is still an unsolved problem.