The main purpose of this essay was to study whether niche parties that were represented in municipal councils in Sweden during the 2007-2010 term of office were politically relevant. Furthermore, factors that might facilitate political relevance for niche parties were studied. Political relevance was studied using two theoretical perspectives. The objective model of political relevance presents four categories of relevance based on the relations between political parties in a political assembly; governing parties, coalition parties, blackmail parties and isolated parties. The subjective model of political relevance relies on the party representatives? own judgments of the relevance of their parties.

Today`s society requires that municipalities focus must be more on effectivity and quality. Because of this it is important for municipalities to look after the controlling systems. Many municipalities choose to adopt models that reflect the efficacy. The municipality of Vellinge has chosen to implement balanced scorecard in all their efficacies. We found it interesting when it was exposed that 70 % of all implementations of balanced scorecard fails.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to, through user studies, analyse whether Carol C. Kuhlthaus information search model is applicable in a Swedish school. Furthermore, the guidance that the students may receive from the teacher and/or school librarian is analysed. Answers are sought to the following questions: · How do the students perceive their information seeking? · How do the librarian and/or teacher support the students during their information seeking process? The study is based on a qualitative method of approach, through interviews with four informants: a librarian, a teacher and two pupils.

Costs of maintenance on combines are a subject of interest thus it constitute a large investment and cost for the individual farmer. Therefore it is important to have up to date knowledge and the right facts to be able to do reliable calculations on one of the largest investments for a farmer. The aim of this study was to compare costs of maintenance on combine/threshingmachine with the computer program for advising environmental issues in agriculture, STANK. Interviews took place and data were collected by handing out questionnaires to 20 farmers. A similar study conducted by Neuman (2003) investigated costs of maintenance and compared these with STANK. The results of this study have also been compared and examined related to data from SLA - Skogs och Lantarbetsgivarförbundet. The result shows that 18 out of 20 combines were given a higher cost of maintenance when using STANK compared to the numbers in this study.

Growth models are very useful tools for forestry to predict growth and yield. With growth models and optimising tools you can manage forest stands in a way that maximize benefit and income. There are three major types of growth models. Stand models; stage structured models and single-tree models. The most advanced models give the most accurate forecasts.

Risk management is a key competency that is constantly being researched how it can be improved within project management. The risk management process consists of four major steps: identify risks, assess the risks? significance on the project, evaluate and address the key risks and follow up.The majority of companies seem to neglect certain identified risks, and decide not to mitigate if the risk does not cause adverse effects to the business. To counteract undesirable consequences and help organisations to become more effective at managing risks an initial work has been conducted for a risk repository.The project develops a proposal on the design of a risk repository which aim to effectively support a database implementation. The study includes literature studies which resulted in a relational model for database implementation.

This report is part of a Bachelor?s degree corresponding to 15 creditsat the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. The work hasbeen carried out by Max Wikander, author of the report, supervisedby Lanie Gutierrez-Farewik and Erik Dijkstra.Gait analysis includes measurement, characterization and assessmentof human movement and is used to assess kinematic or otherabnormalities during gait. Center of rotation and the axis of rotationof a joint are fundamental parameters in motion analysis. However,the ability to create individualized analysis is limited by the lack ofaccuracy when these parameters are calculated.

The use of subscription services directed towards customers has become a common phenomenon in a vast number of different industries. We have noticed a clear trend of new businesses emerging solely offering subscriptions, and existing companies altering sales of their products to become parts of subscriptions. But research has not caught up with this trend yet, especially regarding why it occurs and how it affects existing businesses internally. The purpose of this study is to examine the driving forces for change and examine how existing businesses have to change parts of their business models to offer subscription services. The premise of this study has been Vargo & Luschs (2004) Service Dominant Logic with their foundational premises and Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder et.

Illegal logging and its related trade is of great concern around the world. The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) is a regulatory approach by the EU to prevent illegal timber and timber products to be placed on the European Union inner market. This means the regulation affects both actors in the member countries as well as the actors exporting timber and timber products to the EU from non EU member countries. This study aims to study the implementation process of the EUTR in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H), and its preconditions. Institutional theory is used to understand and explain how the EUTR affects B-H organisations? business environment, and how the organisations choose to respond to the EUTR.

Summary Title: How to make decisions on software based servicedevelopment in the mobile handset industry.?The Rapid Model for Holistic Application Evaluation Authors: Per-Inge AnderssonPatrik Dreveborn Tutors: Björn Regnell, Department of Computer Science,Lund UniversityRobert Wenglén, School of Economics and Management,Lund University Problem formulation: Academically the questions of finding out what constitutes a sound decision base and finding out how to handle the issue of a holistic approach must be addressed in order to make a well balanced and relevant decision model. The core question is which decision criteria to include and which drivers are important in estimating the status of the criteria? Practically to provide Sony Ericsson with a formalized evaluation process for decisions on software development that is transparent, objective and challengeable. Purpose: Academically to contribute to the field of decision making research by elaborating on how to make a holistic, rapid and rational decision model.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the institutional effectiveness of the environmental institutions Helcom and the Mediterranean regime, by using Haas, Levy and Keohane's "the three Cs"; governmental concern, contractual environment, political and administrative capacity. The method used is a comparative analysis.This study takes into consideration the specific structural and economic factors that are prevailing in each region where the environmental regime operates. This study also takes into account the influence of the European Union as a factor that affects the environmental progress.By focusing the study on the line of conduct concerning hazardous substances by respectively regime this study shows that the institutional effectiveness is fulfilled in neither Helcom nor the Mediterranean Regime, although Helcom has been more successful. The lack of state capacity is the most restraining factor for both developing countries and countries in the transition towards being developed, to achieve a good environmental status of the sea. This study also shows that the European Union sometimes has a greater impact on the environmental progress in states, rather than the environmental regime in countries that were/are aspiring members, thus showing the ineffectiveness of the regime..

Sex equality law within the European Union is well developed and has since the Rome Treaty, given rise to several directives and other judicial acts on this matter of community law. The concepts of direct and indirect discrimination emerge from the general principles of Equal pay and Equal treatment and have been codified and amended several times until present.The lasts years, authors within the field of Equality Law has been pointing out that there is a common desire for simplification of discrimination law in Europe. The question has arisen whether this simplification could be implemented trough the introduction of a general justification defence for direct sex discrimination.The concept of direct sex discrimination - when a person of one gender is treated less favourably, on the grounds of gender, than a person of the other gender would be treated in similar circumstances - leaves no possibilities for such justification today. Indirect sex discrimination ? which arises from the equal application of neutral rules that shows an adverse impact on one group ? can be justified if the rule answers to true requirements of the job.Does the proposition that direct discrimination should be justified find support in the inconsistency of the present legislation? This paper will examine this and other questions concerning the wish for a general justification defence through studies of case law from the European Court of Justice as well as differing opinions from authors within the field of equality law..

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.

Background: Today when leisure time is spent, spontaneous sports activities decrease, due to a more comfortable way of living and physical capacity among non active adolescents decreases. There for it´s interesting to see how the physical capacity level has changed over time among young people participating in organized leisure time sports.Studies around the world show that young people standing outside organized sport activities have tended to decrease their physical activity levels over the last few decades. Less leisure time is spent doing physical activity and sometimes gets put into context with increased time spent behind the computer or inactivity.Design: A retrospective study of the test results on physical capacity between 1982 and 2009 for students applying to Växjö track and field high school. A total of 635 students (15 years old) have done 11 physical tests during the years. Five of these tests, with enough participants (at least 100) and documentation over at least 10 years, were used in this study.Results: This study shows that young track and field athletes have maintained the same physical capacity from 1982 to 2009.

The Common Agricultural Policy the European union´s common agreement about the agriculture financial support. A major change is about to take place in the next 3 years. This reform affects the first 15 members as well as the 10 new members in CAP2. This study contains a future of how agriculture will look like in Sweden in 10 years. The study is mainly based on interviews with key-persons3 in Sweden. The first part describes the CAP-reform in theory, the second part the interviews and the last is a conclusion of the material. The future will see larger farm units.