Designing for winter : a study about which qualities among vegetation that can be used to create high values during the winter season

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att utifrån människans olika sätt att uppleva sin omgivning undersöka och analysera vilka vinterkvaliteter hos vegetation som är av väsentlig betydelse för att stimulera människans sinnen under den svenska vintersäsongen. Undersökningen baseras på en litteraturstudie. Inledningsvis undersöks varför vinterutseendet hos vegetationen är av värde för människan med utgångspunkt i miljöpsykologin. Bristen på solljus under vinterhalvåret gör oss ofta trötta och nedstämda. Att arbeta med färger, former och rumslighet tas därmed upp som viktiga faktorer vid gestaltning vintertid för att stimulera människans sinnen. Vegetationens olika utseendekvaliteter har sedan undersökts genom litteratur som behandlar växtgestaltning för att se vilka aspekter som ger högst upplevelsevärden på vinterhalvåret. Att vintern är en årstid som förknippas med mörker och kyla gör att aspekter som vinter- och städsegrönt, bark, kvarsittande frukter, vinterblomning, vinterståndare, habitus, struktur, textur och kontraster blir extra viktiga när det kommer till växtgestaltning med vintern i fokus. Det är kombinationen av dessa olika aspekter som kan göra planteringar som mest intressanta och skapa höga upplevelsevärden även under vinterhalvåret.This essay aims to research and analyze which visual qualities among vegetation that can assist the stimulation of the human senses during the Swedish winter season. The essay is based on a literature study. With a background in environmental psychology, the winter appearances of different plants and vegetation structures are examined to see why they are important to human well-being. Lack of sunlight during winter tends to make us tired and depressed. To work with colour, shapes and spatiality are consequently important aspects when designing for winter. The vegetations different appearances are examined through literature to see which qualities can give us the highest values of experience. The winter is often connected to coldness and darkness. Evergreen vegetation, fruits that remain on the plants through the entire winter, bark colour, winter flowering, habitus, structure, texture and contrasts become important aspects in winter design. It is the combination of these different aspects that makes it possible to create interesting plantings with high values during the winter season

Public administrators’ roles in the policy adaptation of transport directives : how knowledge is created and reproduced

The European Union (EU), as well as many national governments, has adopted directives intended to reduce the environmental impact of transport. For example, the EU’s clean fuel strategy requires Member States to develop national policy frameworks for the market development of alternative fuels and their infrastructure. Given these directives, policy solutions must be formulated and proposed by Member States. This paper focuses on the policy adaptation phase of a policy process, specifically on administrators’ knowledge-making when constructing policy proposals. The paper combines policy theory with planning theory and provides a theoretical framework for studying policy adaptation, specifically, administrators’ construction of knowledge in such processes. The empirical study is based on two cases, both situated in the Swedish context. It concludes that administrators use several sources of knowledge: process knowledge, project knowledge, and context knowledge. New policy solutions are constructed by reusing data from existing reports and policy proposals. A specific focus has been on the use of economic analysis as an instrument for evaluating solutions. The paper shows that, in the policy adaptation phase, no new analyses are conducted and that decoupling strategies are used when dealing with economic analysis. Keywords: policy adaptation, transport, public administration, knowledge, sustainable transport, CBApublishedVersio

Providing ’hard’ local government services in a multi-level, multi-actor system

Source at http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/sjpa/article/view/4627

Providing ’hard’ local government services in a multi-level, multi-actor system

publishedVersio

Interim Management – The way to capture a manager´s true value

The thesis has two aims to first describe the phenomena by explaining how interim management works and what the charachteristics of an interim manger are. The second aim is to look at the value issue of interim management; What value does an interim manager provide to a company and how do interim managers try to capture and cultivate this?The qualitative method has been used. The interim management market analysed in this thesis can be stated to consist of three parts; the interim manager as a provider of knowledge, a client firm in need of a temporary manager, and an interim agency in between working as an intermediary/supplier. The characteristics of interim managers are; they are in general self-employers and rather generalists than specialists, meaning they are experienced and have great knowledge skills. The challenges and the flexibility of their chosen career are the main drivers behind them becoming interim managers. They can be considered to be knowledge workers and the most suitable statement for that have showed to be as a cause of the knowledge they bring, both to the client companies that they temporary work in, but even for them selves. Their big drive is new challenges therefore their knowledge will continue to grow. Since their products they are selling are their knowledge and experiences they will capture and cultivate their own value

Strategies Certified Project Management Professionals Use to Prevent Counterproductive Behavior

Project managers who fail to apply strategies to prevent counterproductive work behavior in information technology projects could negatively affect users, budget costs, timelines, or projects. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that project managers used to prevent counterproductive work behavior that put project success at risk. Social learning theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected through document review of published Project Management Institute (PMI) material as well as semistructured interviews with 10 project managers who were members of a PMI chapter in the southeastern United States, and who held a project management professional certification or an agile certified practitioner certification. Data were analyzed using Yin\u27s methodology and consisted of transcribing, organizing, and coding the interview data, as well as triangulating the interview data in relation to the PMI literature. Five themes emerged from the data: (a) participant communication, (b) proactive planning, (c) personal impact, (d) participant engagement, and (e) issue management. The implications of the study for positive social change include the potential to increase the occurrence of conflict-free and healthy project environments, which could lead to satisfied and motivated project participants resulting in productive and engaged members of the community

E-waste ur ett skyldighetsperspektiv

The purpose of my essay is primarily to highlight the relevance of an obligation perspective, but also to draw attention to the problems related to e-waste. In my theory, I have mainly used the Onora O'Neill literature on the subject of obligations. To limit my working area, I have chosen to look at the legal and moral obligations. Further delineation is done by focusing on the obligations of the EU. Through textual analysis of legal documents and philosophical literature and the presentation of the problematic situation due to e-waste, I have analyzed the situation from a duty perspective. There is a widespread problem around obligations and e-waste. From an obligation perspective, I answered my research question: What obligations are legally and morally in terms of e-waste? Moral and legal obligations is limited largely to their own nation and do not extend internationally as they should have in the case of e-waste. Norms of consuming lead to negative impact on the earth's resources and increases the amount of e-waste. Based on the situation arising out of the poor e-waste management, both negative and positive obligations are needed to improve the situation that has become for many people in developing countries. For the situation to be sustainable a change is required concerning the consumption of electronics. Moreover, norms of consumption and thoughts of financial gain need to changed and place focus on quality instead of quantity. Obligations to reduce the amount of e-waste are against us, people in developing countries who take direct damage of e-waste and to future generations

Questioning the dichotomy: A Latent profile analysis of ecological management practices in Swedish agriculture

Currently, farmers who are not certified according to organic certification schemes are considered to be conventional farmers. Discussions in the farming sector reveal a view that the current organic classification system is too narrow and does not account for the full heterogeneity of the ecological practices that are prevalent in the agricultural sector. The failure to recognise practices within conventional farming, such as low-input farming or conservation agriculture, may therefore undermine efforts to adopt ecological practices. This study investigates heterogeneity in farmer uptake of management practices using factor analysis for dimension reduction and Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) for identification of farmer segments. The findings reveal four farmer profiles with a varying degree of use of chemicals and ecological, alternative, or mixed management approaches. Using seemingly unrelated regression, we find that being certified according to the Swedish organic certification scheme KRAV, or the EU organic label, does not have an impact on a farmer’s profile, suggesting that the data do not support the organic/conventional dichotomy. Instead, age, farming income and geographical location are to a greater degree the key factors in determining the larger farmer profile compared with the smaller, more diversified farmer profiles

How planners' use and non-use of expert knowledge affect the goal achievement potential of plans : Experiences from strategic land-use and transport planning processes in three Scandinavian cities

This article addresses the question of how planners’ use and non-use of expert knowledge affect the content and goal achievement potential of plans, and discusses how changes in planners’ and researchers’ practices can contribute to improving goal achievement potential. These are questions that have been given surprisingly little attention in planning research. Although interesting discussions have emerged over recent years, few empirical studies have been presented. This article presents theory-based empirical research on these issues based on analyses of strategic land-use and transport planning processes in three Scandinavian cities where an aim is to limit or reduce traffic volumes and greenhouse gas emissions of transport. This is a highly relevant issue when analysing the effects of planners’ use and non-use of expert knowledge. Goal achievement potential refers to whether plans (if implemented) contribute to achieving defined objectives, which in this paper mainly regards curbing or reducing urban traffic volumes. The expert knowledge in question concerns how land-use and transport systems development influence traffic volumes in urban regions. The article concludes that whether planners use the expert knowledge in question or not, and how they use it, do affect the goal achievement potential of the plans they produce. This knowledge is the main basis for many planners’ knowing and acting. Planners use it to understand, explain and argue for how and why coordination is necessary, and for selecting traffic-reducing measures. All examined plans also include strategies and measures that reduce their goal achievement potential, and non-use of the expert knowledge is an important part of the explanation as to how and why this is the case. When competing objectives seem to call for traffic-increasing measures, planners tend not to take account of expert knowledge in explaining that these measures reduce the goal achievement potential of plans, and they do not turn to it for finding innovative ways of solving their planning problems. Instead, they rely on their embedded professional knowledge, which is sometimes outdated or misleading. In other cases, planners disregard the knowledge because it challenges planning agendas or compelling ideas, or they exercise self-censorship when finding that it conflicts with political agendas. Considerable effort is required in ensuring higher goal achievement potential in future plans. Planners need to be more critical of their own tacit knowledge, and turn more actively to research-based knowledge. Researchers need to produce the knowledge planners need in ways that are useful and usable for them.acceptedVersio

"Det är annorlunda att vara adoptivföräldrar" - En undersökning av adoptionsrådgivares beskrivning av arbetet med adoptivfamiljer utifrån anknytningsteori och socialkonstruktivism

The aim of this study was to examine how professional adoption counselors perceives and works with the problems that may occur in adoptive families. With a qualitative method of semi-structured interviews five adoption counselors were interviewed to answer the questions: What difficulties do professionals experience in the adoptive family when they seek help? What causes do the professionals see to the problems that the adoptive family has? How do the professionals meet the adoptive familys’ difficulties? An adoption counselor, according to our definition, is a professional with special knowledge and experience in working with adoptive families. The results showed that adoption counselors see problems as attachment difficulties, a general concern from the parents about their childs’ development, the childs’ behavioral problems, anxiety related to school and preschool and the experience of an abnormal behavior from the child. It was concluded that in most cases it was attachment difficulties between the child and parent that contributed to the difficulties in the families. Furthermore, it was found that the causes of the difficulties could be the parents’ unprocessed trauma from their own childhood, the parents’ unprocessed involuntary childlessness, a past trauma in the childs’ life, the childs’ separation sensitivity and parental expectations that do not conform to the childs’ actions. The study also showed that the adoption councelors treatment of families and their difficulties characterized by confirmation, sensitivity and respect. The response from the councelors was found to be controlled by internalized and externalised norms about how a family should be. It was concluded that the biological child was desirable and was seen as the norm and what most parents, as adoption counselors encounter, aspired. Adoption counselors also saw other professionals’ lack of knowledge about adoption-related issues that the family or the child may have