The Swedish National Rail Administration has changed in the past decade, from its origin after a less dramatic separation from the Swedish State Railways to becoming an authority with its own identity. Today the National Rail Administration is a large organisation with several different departments, each with its own unique function. To operate train services the railway needs to be ?in shape?, leading to a need for maintenance, reinvestments and new investments. For this purpose, the National Rail Administration carries out public procurement where contractors, who are able to perform maintenance and new construction, submit tenders.

Today there are many applications of digital terrain models (DTM) and the requirements of low uncertainty increases. Most of the DTM are produced with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), airborne laser scanning (ALS) and total stations. Guidelines for the preparation and verification of DTM are found in Swedish Standards Institute ? Technical Specifications (SIS-TS) 21144:2007 and SIS-TS 21145:2007. These were defined in collaboration between Swedish National Rail Administration, Banverket, and Swedish Road Administration, Vägverket, to satisfy the needs of requirement formulations in the production of DTM planning, design and construction. The purpose of this paper is to produce and control DTM over Åkermans kulle, located west of the University of Gävle, according to SIS TS 21144:2007 using GNSS with network-RTK, TLS and ALS.

One of the main goals of the national curriculum is to encourage children?s personal opinion and support them in development of argumentation ability and communication skills. All this is very important for the children as members of the future society.The purpose of this essay is to investigate how primary school teachers estimate the meaning of the pupil?s argumentation as well as which methods and approaches are assumed by the teachers to be most appropriate for children?s argumentation development. The study also considers the questions how the teachers motivate their pupil has to argue in the classroom and how the students by themselves understand the concept of argumentation.

In this essay, I will look at three different Compulsory comprehensive schools in one community and I will compare final grades from students who graduated in spring 2006. I will also examine how the three schools work with students, and in what way they approach students with dyslexia/reading- and writing difficulties, so that they could reach goals set by The Swedish National Agency for Education. The aim with this essay is to show differences between schools in the same community and my question is if it is the way you approach students with dyslexia/reading- and writing difficulties that affects the student?s grades and results.The study is concentrating on three schools in one community and students with dyslexia and reading- and writing difficulties that went to those schools. I have spoken to remedial teacher at each school about how they approach students with dyslexia/reading- and writing difficulties, what kind of methods the use, how they investigate if a student is in need of special help and how they grade their students who are in need of special teaching because of their learning disabilities.

This Degree project is a study about the Mortgage Cap, introduced in October of 2010, and its impact on the demand for rented apartments. The mortgage cap was introduced to decrease the households? loan-to-value ratio and thereby increase their economical resistance during times of financial instability.The past ten years Swedish households have continuously increased their average loan-to-value ratio. In an attempt prevent this negative development Finansinspektionen introduced a mortgage cap stating that banks should no longer grant mortgages corresponding to more than 85 percent of the property?s market value.In order to answer the main question two methods were used both a survey and two interviews.

In this study I have analysed the national tests in Swedish between the years 2006-2010. These tests are given to all students in the public schools in grade 9 and 10. I wanted to see if I identified an over-representation of a certain category of people in the texts given to the students. I analysed the texts from an intersectional perspective and I used primary Lena Martinsson (2007), Framtidens feminister and her categories and theories and Moria von Wright (1998) Genus & text- när kan man tala om jämställdhet i fysikläromedel?, and her gender categories in my study.

Sweden?s District councils and Country councils are in itself to a large extent responsible for the state financed welfare. Because of this, Sweden has a contribution- and adjustment system. The reason for this system is to create equal chance, for all District councils and Country councils, to be able to give the citizens service independently of their income and non-influential structural differences. The adjustment is built upon the so-called standard cost method, which contains four different parts.

The hypothesis of this study is that the local government act in Sweden 1862 was an instrument for the state to keep its´ political influence on the local level. It did not open for local self-government. The swedish historians Dahlkvist and Strandberg description of the Swedish local government act support this hypothesis, as does the analysis of political scientists Pettersson and Söderlind. The general opinion that the local government act opened for local self-government does still exist among many swedish historians.This study had two aims. The first was to investigate the actual extent of self-government in Borgvik, a small municipality in Sweden during the period 1861-1924.

Between 1860 and 1940 approximately 1,1 million Swedish citizens emigrated to North America. But over 200 000 of them returned to Sweden. In this essay I have tried to estimate the impact of these people on the Swedish society. To make a deeper analyze possible, I have studied the parish of Glima?kra in southern Sweden and tried to trace the immigrants? lives after their return to Sweden and thus estimate their impact on society.By statistical analysis of migrants between Sweden and USA and between the parish of Glima?kra and USA I have concluded that the result can be used as a model for Sweden on a national basis.

This study is mostly based on previous research, which includes Sub-national actor?s attitudes and regional action towards the European Union. The purpose of the study is to investigate if four Swedish municipalities in Värmland operate internationally towards the European Union and deepen an understanding of their actions. The main research question is: - How can we increase our understanding of municipal action against the European Union? The research questions of this study are answered through qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were conducted.

China has the world?s largest population and during the last thirty years the country has implemented political and economical changes that have affected China to move towards a more western market economic direction. At first this development was going slow but during the last five years it has increased which today has made China the world?s greatest growing economy. China?s improved cooperation with the world is one reason for this growth which has led to a cumulative of the consumer market.

AbstractThis report was undertaken at the request of the Management and maintenancedepartment of Swedish National Road Authority (Vägverket Region Sydöst) inJönköping.In 1992, the management and maintenance of Swedish roads were laid out onexternal contractors. When putting out a tender for the work, the foundation isfrom a national set of rules which are in constant change. This report is limited towinter road upkeep.The trend in the invitation for tenders is that it is moving from the moreconventional executional demands towards the less controlling demands. Thedownside of functional, less controlling demands is that it is difficult to articulatehow to measure them. The order authority therefore has to find ways to makesure to get what has been paid for.In connection to the invitation for tender of winter road upkeep for 2005, the newset of rules, ATB Vinter 2003 was deployed.The main purpose of this thesis is to see which the big changes in the set of rulesare and how these changes affect the organisation and activities of the contractor.It is also studied how the changes in execution is perceived by road users and howit affects the possibilities of the contractor to come as a newcomer to a new areaof administration.Interviews and examination of sets of rules has led to a list of a number ofchanges that the contractors feel affect their work in any sense.Views from road users that have come in to the order authority have beenscrutinized to see how they have experienced the change.

The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign citizens.

The Catalan movement of Independence is a well debated subject in Spanish news for the last decade. This thesis aims to examine what kind of identityarguments that spanish versus catalan newspapers make about the independence movement, in relation to nationalism and national identity. This is to deeper the understanding about the current complex situation in the Iberian Peninsula. The research shows that identityarguments about the independence movement presented by catalonian newspapers clearly put focus on identifying the ethnic and cultural reasons for the growing nationalism in the region, as well as discussing the political possibilities and obstacles of a sovereign Catalonia. In comparison, the identityarguments presented by spanish newspapers has another view of the situation, where the political aspect of the nationalistic catalan movement, identify the process as defying the Spanish Constitution and challenging the traditional historic unity of Spain.

Young councillors are currently under-represented in Sweden's municipalities. Young councillors are also stepping down in greater numbers than older members. This paper explores the reasons why young councillors choose to resign from their mission, so to identify possible remedies to the problematic trend of underrepresentation of younger people in local authorities in Sweden.This qualitative essay intends, through interviewing politically-active young people who has left their assignment, to study the reasons for resignations from elected posts. To see what could be the reason I have looked at previous studies and theories about opting out but also tried to remain open to identifying new and emerging trends previously undetected in existing surveys.The results showed that the political assignment proved to be too time-consuming, with young people choosing to spend their time on career and leisure. Those who resign from political life often express criticism towards the Municipal Council; they consider it tedious and many complain of having little influence.