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.

Urban trees have very little in common with trees on natural sites, such as forests or pastures. Trees in urban environments are often planted in packed soil and in small volumes. This can lead to decreased availability of water and oxygen, as well as deteriorated ability for the soil to store nutritional elements. Also above ground the tree usually have limited space in cities. Regulations on free height over roads and cycle tracks demands high stems at an early stage of their development.

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.

This essay deals with the weak and unstable urbanization process of the town Falkenberg. The aim has been to explore how a new town could be established just a kilometre away from the town (Old) Falkenberg and what kind of meaning the town had in relationship to the towns Halmstad and Varberg. This was made through the study of the political situation in Denmark and Sweden during the 15th century and through a comparison of the town churches. The archaeological material of Falkenberg is very small and thus I had to trust the available historical literature about the town.Not much of the oldest history of the town is known, but a conflict between the landed aristocratic family Thott and the king Kristian I in Denmark has been interpreted as a reason to the establishing of the town. In conclusion the survey showed that the king probably established New Falkenberg in purpose to limit the trading possibilities of Thott and to, at the same time, increase his own power in the district.

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. .

Abstract The aim of this study was to explore and describe the pupils' thoughts on seed and its development into seedling. Twenty nine Swedish pupils at the age of 7 and 10 years old were interviewed about their knowledge of seeds.It turned out that pupils often have so-called everyday belief to describe the natural science phenomenon by connecting their explanations to phenomena in everyday life to which they are familiar. To describe the process of seed developing into seedling is something that most of the pupils believe to be difficult and this resulted mostly in the answer ?it is growing.? Children have some knowledge about what seeds need in order to germinate but they do not mention the importance of oxygen as a component of seed to be able to germinate and grow. They mean instead that it is sufficient with soil, water and sun.The older pupils, however, are more often than the younger pupils able to connect their reflections to a more scientifically correct description based on terms belonging to the phenomena, though these terms sometimes are wrongly used.

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.

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.

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.

In January 2007 the Öresund committy changed its statutes to become a more politically oriented lobby organization. This change can be interpreted as one part of a continuously evolving process where the Öresund region is emancipating itself from the national states in a multi-level European environment. By focusing on this latest development the thesis puts forward the importance of political institutions, as well as politicians and civil servants as actors in them, as crucial factors in the process where the region is gaining political power. The thesis shows how the political cross-border cooperation in the Öresund region is being institutionalized which affects its power relations to other levels in the multi-level system, predominantly the national states. In other words, there is a connection between power and institutionalization.The Öresund committee has by gaining better access to policymaking agendas on the national levels proven that the organizational change has already started to bear fruit.

This paper deals with institutional and structural factors' influence on democratic transition in limited multiparty regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparing the cases Kenya and Tanzania, of which the former has made a transition to democracy and the latter has not, this paper reaches the conclusion that political traditions, the coalescing of the opposition, and the elites ability to learn from the electoral process is essential for a transition to democracy. In the specific cases, the harshness of the Moi regime and the Tanzanian vision of national unity may possibly carry some explanatory power, alongside the pressure from international actors.These results have been reached through the application of a comparative case study, where democratic transition constitutes the dependent variable. It should be noted that a harsh definition of the term transition has been applied, according to which the incumbents actual loss of an election is a necessary indicator for transition. However, the Freedom House and Polity scores have been brought up as complement of this definition.