Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology.

The purpose of this essay is to present, from a theoretical framwork about regional democracy, possible methods to handle the regional democratic problems in Östergötland in Sweden and to investigate the opinion of the political parties regarding this issue. Both the national and the local/regional level are investigated. The contents of the essay is based on literature studies and interviews of politicians in Östergötland. Regional democratic problems that is discussed are the political responsibility and the power distribution between the political actors on the regional level. A solution of the problem could be to organize the regional society structure in accordance with one of the following organization models"Statligt regionalt ansvar","Kommuner i samverkan"or"Regionalt folkstyre".

In present time, more and more people move into cities. Densification of cities as planning policy together with an intensive urbanization, makes urban planners face with the contradictory task of creating a city that is both dense and green. Façade vegetation has been used for centuries, mainly in the form of various climbing plants that with or without supportive structures have spread over facades to give a green impression to the environment. The development of new technology today allows urban planners to use greenery integrated with façades. Vertical gardens offer a larger variety of plants, and at the same time takes advantage of the technological benefits of vegetation in city planning.

This essay analyses the act of reading August Strindberg?s novel En dåres försvarstal (A Madman?s defence). It reveals the writer?s motif and purpose with the text and it shows how a certain interpretation of the text is crucial for the writer?s intentions to become reality. But it also shows how this interpretation is threaten by several, both intertextual and extratextual, thematically and structural, factors.

This report aims to examine the design of a passive house. The design addresses the selection ofmaterial, sizing and selection of both building services systems and building technical features suchas load-bearing framework and moisture control. Interior layout is designed for a family of twoadults and one child.A big part of the report is devoted to an in-depth comparison of three different wall constructions ofpassive house standard. The structures that have been compared are a lightweight timber structure, aheavier concrete structure and a sandwich wall of the brand Weber Leca. The report covers variousaspects such as air flow, wall thickness, the risks associated with the construction, U-value, thermalbridges, power consumption, price, and assembly costs.

The Methodology used to gather empirical materials for this thesis has been different types of interviews. The interviews have been mainly unstructured personal interviews directly with our respondents, due to limiting factors some of the interviews have been carried out via phone or email.The theoretical framework consists of literature from well-recognised authors and is divided into four different parts: Insourcing & Outsourcing, Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management, China & Intercultural understanding. The empirical foundation has been gathered from a great variety of different sources in an attempt to cover the many complex angels in which this subject can be looked upon. Chinese students, managers in international companies with experience from China, Chinese employees in Swedish companies and different people with good knowledge of different areas of China are all among our respondents.In our conclusion we have reached the three following conclusions for why one should start a ?bridge building? enterprise in between qualified Chinese human capital and Swedish structure capital: 1.

This thesis describes the processes of establishing wind farms in Sweden. The workcontains a thorough literature review regarding both the establishing process andproject management, including complex project theory. The main part consists of theexecution of 15 interviews with organizations involved in wind farm establishment.The result of these interviews laid the foundation for a process description identifyingdifferent steps and activities in these types of projects. The outcome was thencompiled in a project model, which includes five phases and four processes.When analyzing the project of establishing wind farms from the theory of complexprojects one discovers that the amount of different requirements and stakeholdersnecessitates a systematical and dynamical project structure. Since projects are in needof different types of competences there are also many consultants and contractorsinvolved.

Ett allt vanligare uppdrag inom hydraulisk modellering är att undersöka hur nya bostads- och handelsområden påverkar statusen för äldre befintliga ledningsnät. I nya områden anläggs nästan uteslutande separatsystem och eftersom nya områden oftast uppförs utanför den befintliga bebyggelsen måste spillvattnet från dessa områden transporteras genom det befintliga avloppsnätet, vilket kan vara helt eller delvis kombinerat.I stadsdelen Hjorthagen i Stockholm planeras 5000 nya lägenheter att byggas och spillvattenflödet från dessa skall anslutas uppströms det befintliga kombinerade ledningsnätet i området. Examensarbetet har gått ut på att undersöka hur det kombinerade ledningssystemet påverkas av den tillkommande spillvattenbelastningen. Syftet var att undersöka hur den dimensionerande spillvattenavrinningen påverkar de åtgärder och kostnader som behövs för att få det utökade ledningsnätet att fungera, samt att utreda behovet av ytterligare anpassningar av ledningsnätet inför framtida klimatförändringar.Vid beräkning av bräddvolymer simuleras vanligen spillvattenavrinningen från medeldygnsförbrukning av vatten. I studien har det även ingått att undersöka om detta sätt ger lägre bräddvolymer jämfört med att variera vattenförbrukningen med ett veckomönster.Med modelleringsprogrammet MIKE Urban undersöktes tre fall av dimensionerande spillvattenflöde från det tillkommande området i Hjorthagen.

Riskhantering inom rese- och turismnäringen där resenärens uppfattning ligger till grund för dennes köpbeslutsprocess har fått begränsat med uppmärksamhet på den akademiska arenan.Syfte: denna uppsats syftar till att studera vilka riskuppfattningar som en potentiell resenär associerar med den urbana miljön, samt hur detta fungerar som inverkansfaktor på resenärens konsumentbeteende i valet av staden som destination. Teoretiskt ramverk: en litteraturgenomgång och ett teoretiskt ramverk visar på vad som utgör det så kallade risksamhället, betydelsen av riskkategorisering diskuteras samt hur kopplingen mellan resenärens riskuppfattning och dennes köpbeslutsprocess ser ut.Metod: för att uppnå syftet har problemet angripits med ett abduktivt arbetssätt. En kombination av kvantitativ och kvalitativ metodik har applicerats. I enkätundersökningen deltog 224 inkommande resenärer till Stockholm, vilket har bearbetats statistiskt med Pearsons Chi2-test för att undersöka graden av riskuppfattning beroende på socio-demografiska faktorer. Dessutom genomfördes nio samtalsintervjuer som ledde till en tematiserad sammanställning.Empiri: genom enkätformuläret observerades att psykologiska riskuppfattningar var mest framträdande, och i samtalsintervjuerna noterades hur riskuppfattningen påverkar konsumentbeteendet.Resultat: slutsatserna som har dragits är att 1) korrelation föreligger mellan socio-demografiska faktorer och riskuppfattning, 2) stadens livsrytm fungerar som inverkansfaktor, och att 3) uppfattningen om risker präglas av subjektivitet..

If one looks at physical planning in Sweden today one can see that while talking about densification of existing development, reduced emissions and careful use of important land, urban sprawl is a fact with development of sheer residential districts in the urban edges and shopping malls in each and every municipality. As sustainable development is an essential goal for physical planning to strive towards, it is worth questioning if the direction of today?s planning will lead to the goal. A sustainable development can be seen as an obvious to goal aim at. In reality the aim means a hard and complex work.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how large Swedish corporations within the same industry protect themselves against foreign exchange risks and to determine if there is a general practice for how the protection is done. What is the responsibility structure at these corporations regarding the handling of exposure to foreign exchange?.

The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine attitudes among social workers, particularly their attitudes toward their clients? poverty and towards economic counseling as a method. A further aim was to study the relationship between attitudes towards poverty and economic counseling. Primary data used for the study was assembled among social workers (n = 111) with the use of an electronic questionnaire that was sent out to social welfare offices in 34 city districts in Stockholm,Gothenburg and Malmö. The findings showed that a majority of the social workers had a structural understanding of poverty and a positive attitude towards economic counseling.

The purpose of our study is to interpret and understand the collaborative process around a regional model that is based on state developed guidelines for people with dementia. We have chosen to focus on the importance of interaction and have therefore interviewed participants in the project's steering committee. This group participates in efforts to develop a model for dementia care in Halland.The project work in Halland, to develop a joint model for people with dementia and their families was initiated in the spring of 2011 and is due to finish at the end of 2012. The Halland model has been named ?Annas led? and is about Anna and her husband Lars and living with dementia.

Intresset för småskaliga vindkraftverk på byggnader har ökat under de senaste åren. Allt fler människor blir mer energi- och miljömedvetna samt ser fördelarna med att elektriciteten produceras där den konsumeras; i den bebyggda miljön.Det är dock en större utmaning att installera ett vindkraftverk i urban miljö, jämfört med i öppet landskap, då det finns många faktorer som skall beaktas. Stadens komplexa uppbyggnad gör att vindens hastighet och riktning varierar och ger upphov till turbulenta strukturer i den omgivande luften. Många av dagens vindkraftverk kan ej operera effektivt vid turbulens, därför måste dessa vindkraftverken placeras på höga höjder för att nå den laminärt strömmande vinden över staden, vilket ger orealistiska längder på de master som krävs, även om vindkraftverket monteras på en byggnad. För att kunna utnyttja de vindar som uppkommer i urbana miljöer bör vertikalaxlade vindkraftverk med en helixformad geometri på rotorn användas.

How capital structure influences corporate performance and value has been in the interest of researchers and scholars for more than half a century, but an answer is yet to be found. The main objective of the present paper is to contribute with data for this cause and hopefully help to clarify this mystery. The method that was used was by analyzing the impact of debt on profitability and market valuation through linear regression. The study examined 17 Swedish property companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Large Mid and Small Cap over a 6 year period (2007-2012). The authors found a slightly negative relationship between debt-to-equity and profitability measured by return on equity (ROE) as well as by return on assets (ROA).