The Swedish Transport Administration has, and manages, a database containing information of the status of road condition on all paved and governmental operated Swedish roads. The purpose of the database is to support the Pavement Management System (PMS). The PMS is used to identify sections of roads where there is a need for treatment, how to allocate resources and to get a general picture of the state of the road network condition. All major treatments should be reported which has not always been done.The road condition is measured using a number of indicators on e.g. the roads unevenness.

A current debate is going on in Sweden about the health-care organization, how it is structured today and how it should be structured in the future. Despite major changes in the county council structures, they still got problems with for instance economy and the providing of staff. As an answer to these problems new solutions are being developed.In this thesis I examine such a solution consisting of cooperation between county councils. The aim of the thesis is to examine how and why the county councils in Sörmland and Västmanland have made a decision regarding cooperation over the administrative border.My contribution is to construct a model over change and decision processes that can be used in other cases as well. The conclusion is partly that the decision to cooperate is built on changing structural factors, such as economy, demography and medical development.

Det byggs mer och mer med prefabricerade håldäcksbjälklag vilka har stora dimensionerings och produktionsfördelar. Långa spännvidder och lätta bjälklag gör denna typ av konstruktion känslig för vibrationer och därför ställs konstruktörer idag inför en problematik som inte tidigare vanligtvis varit en dimensionerande faktor. Som en naturlig följd av detta är kunskapen inom området begränsad och förståelsen för denna typ av konstruktion vid dynamiska problem eftersatt. Hur håldäcksbjälklag beter sig vid små dynamiska laster, från mänsklig aktivitet på bjälklaget, och hur denna typ av problematik ska hanteras beräkningsmässigt behöver studeras. Vid statiska beräkningar antas bjälklaget vara enkelspänt men vid dynamiska beräkningar kan bland annat inte detta antagande göras då effekten från elementens sammankopplingar och eventuella pågjutningar påverkar bjälklagets styvheter och därmed dess dynamiska beteende.

The Swedish winters 2009/10 and 2010/11 were rich in snow and many roofs collapsed, mainly largespan frames. Investigations were made and the amount of snow was not the primary cause, insteadthere were several other causes. One of these was that in some cases roofs were shoveled in anunfavorable manner which affected the load patterns negatively, so causing the roofs to collapse.Most people lack the knowledge of how shoveling will affect the roof. Had there been an increasedunderstanding regarding shoveling, some roofs could have been prevented from collapsing.Through both qualitative and quantitative research in the form of interviews and calculations thetheoretically best ways to shovel a selection of roof types is presented in the report. The roofstructures covered are 3-compartment, continuous and Gerberspliced metal roof decks.

Moisture damage in buildings is a serious issue that leads to problematic consequences and high economic costs. Despite the knowledge and awareness existing about moisture problems, extensive damager still occurs today. Studies of moisture in the exterior wall constructions shows that the issue if often caused by rain and water intrusion. These kinds of problem result in major costs usually because the companies have to replace the material and structural components and also in some cases tear down large parts of the buildings.The work includes moisture theory and descriptions of four different exterior wall constructions, wood stud wall with plastered facade, exterior wall with wood facade, exterior wall with concrete, and exterior wall with brick facade. Our thesis work describes how the constructions are affected and moisture damage due to water intrusion.

Youth unemployement in Sweden is at an all-time high, a fifth of all university and college students live in poverty and the number of young on welfare is increasing. This study attempts to answer the question of how youth deprivation has been made possible as a consequence of political action, focusing on youth unemployment. I critically examine the role of the Swedish government, the Swedish Labour Organisation (LO), and the various government departments through text analysis, in order to answer the question of how the current discourse on youth position in the labor market. Because youth unemployment is not an isolated phenomena the analysis covers several policy areas, such as education policy, labor market regulation and housing policy. I use discourse theories drawn from Laclau and Mouffe to expose how language is used as an instrument of political power. I conclude that the current situation is a result of policy choices where the young have fallen behind due to lack of political organization. Their situation is not problematized to the required degree and is often explained on an individual level rather than on a structural level. .

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 purpous of this master?s thesis is to explore how the swedish public library evolved between 1890-1911, before the state implemented the library reform in 1912. The material used to cunduct the study concists mainly of texts published during the time frame of the thesis in the form of books, booklets and articles from Folkbiblioteksbladet, a journal dedicated to the subject of the swedish public library.Drawing upon Habermas theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere and Bourdieus theories about taste as social distinction and symbolic capital, the thesis seeks to show how the public participated in the evolvement of the public library and which aspects of society that contributed to the public library?s establishment as an institution. The findings are also discussed in relation to previous research of the history of the Swedish public library.

The European Brown bear (Ursus arctos) has gone from basically being extinct in Sweden to, 2008 being estimated to a total of 3298 individuals. When looking at the new Swedish moose management system it is important to have an ecosystem-based approach and therefore include all the parts that moose impacts on and from in the management, especially the brown bear. Primarily in the spring and early summer the brown bear is a significant predator on moose calfs which must be taken into account in moose management. When the bear recolonize areas that it has previously been eradicated from, it will once again come in contact with people who are not accustomed to the bear's role in the ecosystem. We studied three groups of moose management areas with different predation by bears.

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 purpose of this study is to examine how EU-migrants visiting the social project Crossroads experience their life situation in the Swedish society. Two questions were formulated: (1) How do the respondents describe their situation when it comes to work, housing and social network? (2) How do the interviewees describe and experience the social project Crossroads? The method used was qualitative interviews conducted with five EU-migrants who visited Crossroads. The theoretical framework is the concept of integration and Bauböcks (1996) theoretical model of the ideal society. The results show that none of the interviewees had their own accommodation.

Female musicians and actors are being disadvanteged in the music industry, because of standards that prevents women from participating on equal terms. Unequal distribution of resources and status depends on power structures which creates an hierarchy. This study is about how an organization, Femtastic, works for equality and diversity in the field of music, how they experience their positions and their possibilities. Also how they relate to the cultural policy objectives. Femtastic is trying to create a structural change in the male-dominated music industry.

The report describes the process of identifying the interference that exists in a newly installed automated robotic cell and suggest improvements to increase productivity. The cell is used for lifting up extruded aluminum sections onto a conveyor which deliver the material to a anodising line at a company that manufactures aluminum extrusions.To find the areas with the best possibility for improvements in the cell we used a variety of job measurements e.g. measure of standard times for each operation in the cell. The core of the report is a study of the robots.One reason for this study is that the robots do not reach the productivity they were purchased to. The main cause not reaching the productivity is the visionsystem.

The Brussels I-Regulation, often referred to as the Jurisdiction Regulation, is said to be the matrix of the European judicial cooperation system within the area of international private law. The Regulation states how jurisdiction is to be determined in an international dispute. The aim of the Regulation is to ensure that parties in a dispute within the EU have access to justice.The Regulation is considered to be working well in general, and have been since it came in-to force in 2007. Although it is held to be well functioning it does not exclude that some improvements might be needed. The commission ordered a review of the Regulation and the result was that some deficiencies were identified.

Aims: The aim of this study is to describe how youth?s political exclusion is constructed as asocial problem. This is done through a study of a project which aim is to engage young peoplein politics.Method and theory: By interviewing the project?s manager and developer as well as eightparticipating young people different constructions of the problem of youth political exclusionhas been analyzed using the social constructionist perspective on social problems.Findings: The dominant perspective found in the empirical material includes framing youngpeople?s lack of political knowledge and self-confidence as the reason for their politicalexclusion. Even though the Youth Board (ungdomsstyrelsen) in Sweden officially views allyoung people as a resource, when youth politics are implemented through projects, this is notthe view that young people meet.