In today?s modern society with high-speed connections covering the globe people are more than ever finding themselves gazing into the cold lights of the computer screen. On the other side a strange and exciting world yet to be explored awaits. Many are those who spend hour after hour running over green hills swimming in vast blue oceans in the lands of Azeroth, the playfield in the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. In media we often read and hear alarming reports on players stuck in this virtual world, ceasing to play a part in the real world.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

The aim of this thesis is to study a job-searching process and elements that affects it. The elements I have focused on are gender, class and social network. The study is based on interviews and a survey study with students from the educational program of Social work (Socialomsorgsutbildningen), that graduated 3 years ago. Through the survey I have examined their social-background and their job-searching process. The interviews are the main focus in the study.

The aim of this master?s study is to examine the function of the public library in the local community at present. I have searched for the answers to the following questions: Which position has the public library in the local cultural policy? What characterizes each library and which are the priorities? What is the local profile of the public library? What cooperation partners does the public library have and what do they mean to the library? Does the public library intensify the local community in any way? To answer this, I have made three qualitative case studies. Interviews and collection of documents were carried out in three different communities.

Local history collections are fairly common among the Swedish public libraries and these collections often contain older or rare material. There are no national policies concerning the preservation of rare books at the public libraries, and the librarians of public libraries may lack that knowledge. The aim of this study is to examine librarians? attitudes toward their libraries? local history collections. We interviewed five librarians in the county of Västra Götaland and also made a small observation study of their local history collections.

The residential area Pennygången in Gothenburg is planned to be restored in a very expensiveway. As a consequence the rents will increase dramatically and about 80% of the peopleliving there today will have to move. Excisting social networks might be disrupted.The aim of this project is to illustrate a part of the present social network at Pennygången inthe form of a photobook.I have photographed 12 families in their homes. These families know each other in 36different ways. The final photobook illustrates all these friendships by presenting the familiesknowing each other in pairs..

The purpose of this study was to look into the work of care organizers for elderly care, in three municipalities in southern Sweden, and how they use the law and local guidelines to evaluate the need for home care. The intention was to determine if presence of relatives makes a difference in the needs assessment and if the care organizers practice harmonize with the guidelines. To do this, we did a qualitative study alongside with analyzing each of the local guidelines. By interviewing five care organizers, we were able to see their side of elderly care and how they combine the law and local guidelines in their daily work with elderly care. Our main themes are, in short, the law and local guidelines, the view of care organizing and needs and also closeness to relatives.

The purpose of this report was to investigate to which extent local presence of large herbivore mammals (Alces alces, Cervus elaphus, Capreolus capreolus, Dama dama and Sus scrofa) covaries with small rodents (Myodes glaerolus, Apodemus flavicollis and Apodemus sylvaticus? The hypothesis was that high abundance of wild ungulates would inhibit the density of small forest rodents. The data was collected during field work within FoMA (Environmental Monitoring Assessment)/SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Science). The Ungulate dropping inventory and rodent trappings, which is the base in this report, where performed 2012 ? 2014 in Gnesta/Nyköping municipalities (G/N) with a relatively high density of wild ungulates and Vetlanda/Växjö municipalities (V/V) with relatively lower wild ungulate density.

This study focuses the development on the protection of landscapes with old industries and how it nowadays is appreciated by the inhabitants. The overall aim of this study is to increase the knowledge about how the so called industrial landscape in Norrköping became a cultural heritage that the citizens want to protect. The study also aims to investigate the citizens´ knowledge about the industrial landscape in Norrköping, and what value they think that the place possesses. Data was collected by an information research and six qualitative interviews. The interviews where analysed by qualitative methods techniques.

In my degree project, I explore the importance of distance and how our perception of distance is affected by our experiences.During my investigatory work I studied the relation between distance and experiences. Among other things I concluded that distance can refer to several different kinds of distances (for example spatial, temporal or social distances) and that experiences are what you?ve learnt of these distances. The importance of distance can be illustrated by highlighting the effects of the distance, i.e. experiences.My degree project resulted in a pair of interactive binoculars which are used for looking at an virtual world of illustrations in 360°; a world of illustrations where distance and the importance of distance is shown..

North of the city of Stockholm lies the area called Södra Roslagen composed of several municipalities. The purpose of this essay is to discover how local informants describe the food culture of the region and analyse why some types of food are mentioned and others are excluded. Several people within the food industry of Södra Roslagen were given surveys asking them to describe the food habits of the area, from commodities and certain dishes to traditions. These answers were analysed using the theories regional food, regiocentrism, revitalisation, placeless food and the idea of viewing culture through the long and the short perspective.One informant mentioned that professionals in the food industry of the region tend to follow trends from the rest of the world and another that many producers work with ecological requirements. Södra Roslagen was also defined by some as having a taste of summer as this coastal area sees an influx of visitors during that season.

3D modeling is a common tool in landscape architecture. Today, there have been new ways in which virtual 3D models are successful tools in the dialogue with the public. These new methods involve children and young people who are groups that is hard to reach and engage in citizen dialogues. The purpose of this work was to investigate how a virtual 3D model works in the landscape architect?s communication with the public through the project Gruvstadsparken in Kiruna. Through workshops, I wanted to communicate Gruvstadsparken to get ideas from participants on how the park can be used and be revisited.

Computer games is a growing market with over millions of players that are playing and/or enjoying the play of games on a daily basis. The nerdy gamers that once were, are now becoming professional athletes in the virtual world called eSport. We have identified a lack of studies in this area which implies that there is little data of what it is. In this paper we have focused on the phenomena that is eSport and more closely on the game series Starcraft made by Blizzard Entertainment. Our focus lies in the game series Starcraft and eSport organisations mainly outside South Korea.

Over 80% of Sweden's population lives in urban areas, and half of the country's forest visits will thus be in urban woodlands. Social values ??- how the individual experiences the forest, and the impact of the forest visits on individual health and well-being, are pointing to the importance of managing the urban woodlands.When there comes to the cultivation of the urban woodlands there are usually many opinions to consider.This study aims to investigate the various opinions on the use and forestry in an urban recreation area in ??the City of Trollhättan. The study addresses both general and in four cases specific suggestions on management methods.Data was obtained from both quantitative and qualitative study through survey, interviews and discussions with the users of the recreation area.Trollhättan's goal with the recreation area is to make it accessible to local residents. The users are mainly influenced by the accessibility therefore clearings and thinnings are appreciated.

Since the beginning of the internet the criminal world has used the medium as a platform for operation.This dark web is a domain where illegal sites are flourishing due to the possibilities offered by newtechnology. Net-based criminal activity is a challenge for society as it uses hard proof technologicalsafety measures to avoid the law. Silk Road is the most prominent example, an online illicitmarketplace where drugs and illegal substances are being traded based on conventional e-commerceconcepts. This paper argues for trust as an important factor for the survival of illicit online trade andapplies existing theories on e-commerce and virtual communities. To identify patterns of trust andcommon trust-based issues among Silk Road users, a netnographic study was conducted on the site?sdiscussion forum.