In this undergraduate thesis you will venture on a journey through the land of democratic values and urban planning. My research question is stated as: whether or not urban planning can show effects on democratic values and whether or not the municipalities in Sweden takes these possible effects into account when planning their city centres. You will in my theory part of this thesis be able to read about different views on urban planning and on democracy. Famous authors like Robert D. Putnam and Richard Florida will be examined as well as other theorists on democracy and urban planning.

Background: The importance of creativity and innovation is frequently stressed in modern literature on management. The significance of innovation gives entrepreneurs the reason to prior to the commencement of a relationship with a venture capitalist, obtain necessary insights regarding the influences such a relationship may have, in terms of innovation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to scrutinise the influence of venture capital firms on their portfolio companies regarding their ability to be innovative. Delimitations: The intent is to study the impact of a venture capitalist from the viewpoint of its portfolio companies. In other words, what the portfolio companies have perceived as changes is our main area of concern, rather than what the venture capitalist has perceived as change.

In this project a simulator has been developed (in C++) with the purpose of illustrating how changes in environmental regulations, tax levels and other policy measures affect the composition of an energy system. The aim of the project was to investigate how energy companies? investment strategies are affected when changes in economic and environmental conditions occur. A standard scenario has been created based on current Swedish conditions, but the user can create new scenarios and set parameters freely. The user is tasked with building power plants to supply the city/region with district heating and electricity during a pre-set number of years. When the simulation is finished the result is graded in the following categories: economy, environment and quality. To evaluate the simulator three scenarios were created (?early 20th century?, ?reduced environmental control? and ?future?) in addition to the standard scenario and these were compared with each other by examining how a select group of power plants perform under the given conditions.

This essay has it purpose to view the assessment and grading in physical education in the Swedish school. Recently published reports from skolverket prove that boys have higher grades in the physical education than girls. Some mean that the reason of this is that the teachers don´t follow the curriculum. The problems we chose to examine are how much do teachers know how to use and connect the curriculum to their teaching? How much of the information and criterion in the curriculum do the teachers use to grade their pupils? And most importantly we wanted to examine why boys gets higher grades then girls, when the curriculum doesn?t seem to suit boys any better than girls.We have interviewed teachers in a certain district and our study shows that the teachers have good knowledge about the curriculum.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to describe the library development in Sandviken, during a period from 1865 to 1945. I will mainly focus this examination on the two most significant libraries of the period; on one hand the library facilitated by the ironworks company, and on the other hand the library of the Workers? Educational Association (ABF). This study is carried out within a theoretical framework consisting of the two concepts paternalism and the formative moment, as formulated by Lars Magnusson and Bo Rothstein, respectively.

This essay deals with the diseases osteoporosis and osteoarthritis in a medieval population from Visby in Sweden. The aim has been to evaluate to what extent and in what way these diseases have influenced the people of a relatively large harbour town during the Middle Ages. 24 individuals were analysed osteologicaly and 19 of them became subject for measurements of bone density through DEXA readings. Furthermore four individuals were x-rayed based on external differences due to osteoarthritis and a change in the depression at the base of the medial surface of the greater trochanter. Similar studies have been made in Trondheim, Norway and Wharram Percy, Great Britain.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate if signage for tourists in Stockholm is enough to easily find your way to attractions and public modes of transport and how the city works with the issue. Triangulation was chosen for the essay, that is, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. A survey of 100 tourists was carried out in the Old town of Stockholm and interviews were made with stakeholders in the tourism industry and signage policy in Stockholm. The survey showed that most of the tourists found it easy to find their way in Stockholm and that they were content with the signage. Few of the tourists thought it was difficult to find their way in Stockholm.

The purpose of this study has been to examine and analyze school counselors? experience of collaboration with other professions in the student health team and the preconditions for their work. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with six elementary-, and two high school student counselors in a medium-sized town in Sweden. The theoretical approach being used is: role theory, theory of professions and theory about collaboration. The study´s result shows that the school counselors? experience an unclarity in their job assignments and their role is often described as diffuse and vauge.

Already in 1988, different levels of participation in the election between different districts of big cities in Sweden were noticed. The problem with low political participation in specific areas has almost always been theoretically explained through an individual perspective. This study is therefore focusing on the problem from a contextual perspective. The hypothesis for the study is as follows, in the case of Malmö the level of participation in elections are affected by social environment in which segregation will be the single highest factor. The dependent variable, participation in the election was tested by the independent variables representing social environment; origin, education, gainfully employed and income.

Today, there are few industries left in our cities. Industrial areas thatare located in urban settings close to water or city centers are oftenreplaced by housing. In my thesis I want to explore how such industrialsite located in an urban setting can be transformed into anindustrial park where the industrial structures are saved. By approachingthis type of environment in a positive manner, I wish tohighlight the potential aesthetic and functional value in the existingindustrial structure. Through the transformation and design of anexisting industrial site I will convey the previous use and history ofthe place.The wastewater treatment plant, Kungsängsverket, is located in thedistrict of Kungsängen in the southern part of Uppsala.

This essay has it purpose to view the assessment and grading in physical education in the Swedish school. Recently published reports from skolverket prove that boys have higher grades in the physical education than girls. Some mean that the reason of this is that the teachers don´t follow the curriculum. The problems we chose to examine are how much do teachers know how to use and connect the curriculum to their teaching? How much of the information and criterion in the curriculum do the teachers use to grade their pupils? And most importantly we wanted to examine why boys gets higher grades then girls, when the curriculum doesn?t seem to suit boys any better than girls.We have interviewed teachers in a certain district and our study shows that the teachers have good knowledge about the curriculum.

This study describes how verbal abuse is used in schools and how it affects students. As a  result of the study is a questionnaire which was distributed to 153 students at two schools in a small town in southern Sweden. Students who participated in the study were in grades 3-6 and were between 9 and 13 years old. I asked students 13 questions, which dealt with verbal abuse, some of them were check questions and some were issues that required a longer response.The results of the survey show that 108 students of 153 have ever felt verbally abused at school, slightly more girls than boys. Usually they say they have been verbally abused by their own sex and then with words like boys are more frequently offended by words of a sexual nature, whereas girls more often are offended by words that violate their appearance.The students who feel aggrieved are shown to be those students who violate others.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what attracts children to activity and movement on the playground in a central and municipal preschool in a town located in middle of Sweden. The method was to use a qualitative group interview with five children, two girls and three boys, at the age of five. The interview consisted of a general question about what kids think is fun to do on the playground and was complemented with follow-up questions depending on what the children said. A qualitative interview with a preschool teacher and observations were carried out in the hope that they would confirm what children claimed about play and movement. This study showed a gender difference when girls like to swing together while the boys are making the swinging for a contest.

This study aims to seek knowledge about what preschool teachers think about gender issues, and if it affects their work. The study has been performed in a multicultural district in Stockholm. A working party of three teachers, one male and two females, has been interviewed and observed. The empirical material from the interviews and observations has then been analyzed based on theories about gender, femaleness, maleness and cultural behaviour. The result proves that one of the three teachers considers that there are general typical female and male behaviour.

This study is about language use in text messaging. In this study there are 338 text messages: 206 of them written by girls and 132 written by boys. The informants in the study are 16 years old and they live in the countryside on the outskirts of a small town in southern Sweden. The purpose of this study was to investigate characteristic linguistic features in the messages, in order to determine what significant meaning an emoticon such as a smiley brings to a text and further, to explore what speech acts smileys occur in.The results show that the language in the messages is a mix of spoken and written language. The characteristic features that were found in the messages were short sentences, onomatopoetic expressions, words written in capital letters, English expressions and use of smileys.