Due to its high levels of concern and awareness of environmental issues, rural character, and sparse population, Vermont would at first glance appear to possess the ideal recipe to become a national leader in renewable energy development. Renewable initiatives have focused primarily on wind energy, as over a dozen wind farms have been proposed in the last few years across the state. However, in spite of the widely held belief in Vermont’s wind energy future, its proponents have run into vehement opposition at every proposed site, often successfully impeding the planned developments. This report develops a wide-level framework of the motivations of and complaints presented by wind opposition groups around the state, followed by an analysis of opposition strategies commonly employed. These are contrasted with the tactics used by wind developers and their supporters to remediate or overcome this opposition. Next, this essay will offer a view of the state and local institutional settings in which these battles take place, and finally conclude with a brief analysis of various alternatives to utility-scale wind, offering suggestions for wind’s role in the future of energy in Vermont.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the experiences and meanings of tourism employment for Muslim women in the Middle East, including the positive and negative aspects of this form of employment. The study was conducted in Oman, which was the research site and cultural setting for this study. The theoretical paradigm that guided this study was social constructionism. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was also used for this study in order to interpret and analyze the collected data into themes. A combination of convenience sampling and snowball technique was used to recruit participants for the interviews, resulting in a total of 9 interviews being conducted with local Muslim women working in the Oman tourism industry. The data were collected through open-ended interviews conducted face to face, using a semi structured interview format. The analysis process led to the development of seven themes. The seven main themes related to finding work in the tourism field, facing negative attitudes, challenges of tourism work, dealing with negative attitudes and challenges, the importance of tourism work in women lives, an expanded vision of tourism work, and implications for social change. The study revealed that the idea of women’s tourism work as exploitation is complex and multi-layered in Oman. Although there were some indicators of exploitation for the Omani tourism workers in this study, this form of work was also shown to be a source of benefits and form of empowerment for women. Further, the study revealed that tourism employment could also be seen as a site for women’s resistance, particularly for Muslim women seeking to change attitudes towards women, and to create a new society.

This study is an analysis of the traffic situation for pedestrians and bicyclist, unprotected road users, in Accra’s Central Business District. A Swedish method, Calm streets, is used to identify conflicts in the mixed traffic situation. The findings reveal a large amount of conflicts between unprotected road users and motor vehicles. These conflicts cause congestions which have negative implications on the environment, health and economy. In addition an assessment of the quality of and access to pedestrian and bicycle facilities were conducted. This assessment indicates that the quality and access to the facilities are in general low, especially for the disabled, elderly and children. A larger Traffic Network Analysis and a Cost Benefit Analysis are needed to address these problems for stakeholders and decision makers.

The local newspapers in Sweden are often used as an arena where groups of different political leanings try to frame current events to suit their purposes. Therefore how the news media presents the discussed issue and how it relates to sustainable development are important for a democratic process. One of the largest infrastructural projects in Sweden currently is the Eastern Link and there are many economical, social and ecological concerns when constructing such a large infrastructural project. It is therefore important to look at how sustainable development is represented in the local news media when concerning this infrastructural project. The aim of this thesis is to study how the local media presents the Eastern Link project in relation to sustainable development and how it affects democracy. This thesis critically discusses the different parts of sustainable development; the impact of and on economical issues, social issues and ecological issues in relation to the study material. Both a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach are used as a method. The thesis also links the results of this study to previous research on communication and theories on sustainable development. The results show that neither of the newspapers Folkbladet or NT is presenting the Eastern Link in a balanced way from a sustainability perspective. A majority of the articles are focusing on the social discourse; this differs from previous research where the focus is on the economical discourse.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att ge exempel på hur personliga datorer kan upplevas av eleveroch lärare på gymnasienivå. Metoderna som används är intervju med elever och lärare samtanalys av styrdokument och tidigare forskning inom området. I dag vill man från regeringsoch skolverkets håll förstärka skolans roll som förmedlare av kunskap inom IT-området. Dettalas om digitalkompetens, en färdighet man menar är nödvändig för att idag och i framtidenkunna verka i samhället. Att utrusta elever och lärare med personliga datorer i så kallade entill-en projekt är något som den senaste tiden vunnit mark. I Umeå väljer man hösten 2008och framåt att ge samtliga elever som börjar studera vid någon av de kommunala skolornatillgång till sådana datorer inom vad man benämner som elevdataprojektet. I denna studieintervjuar jag elever och lärare från en av de skolorna i kommunen.Både elever och lärare är i huvudsak positivt inställda till att få tillgång till och arbeta medpersonliga datorer. Lärarna ser bland annat fördelar i kunna anpassa lärandet till enskildaelever, att datorn förenklar inlämningar och spridning av information, att man nu lättare fårtillgång till information/material och att elever i behov av särskilt stöd har stora fördelar.Bland nackdelarna nämns bland annat okoncentration under lektionen att elever med godadatorkunskaper får större fördelar än andra och att personliga datorer ställer krav på elevernaseget ansvar. Eleverna menar att datorn låter gör det lättare att fåt tag på information, att manarbetar effektivare, att det är roligt att arbeta med en personlig dator. Nackdelar man uppleverär bland annat okoncentration under lektionerna, att datorn är tung att bära omkring och attelever med god datorkunskap har större fördelar än andra.Slutsatser som dras är bland annat att lärarens användande och integrerande av datorerna iundervisningen hur stor inverkan på upplevda fördelar och nackdelar samt att den ökadeokoncentrationen bör problematiseras då det i slutändan är osäkert om vad som är ökadokoncentration och vad som synliggjord okoncentration.

Abstrakt Jag har tittat på hur arbetsbelastningen ser ut idag ombord på svenska tankfartyg. Arbetet har belyst inställningen till och respondenternas upplevda känslor vid tiden för vettinginspektionen, men också vad det skulle kunna leda till. Under praktiktiden genomfördes personliga intervjuer samt intervjuer via mejl, och har även använt mig av både kvalitativa och kvantitativa undersökningar. Utredningen har visat att respondenternas goda inställning till vettinginspektioner, mest oro före vettinginspektionen, förberedelserna väl genomförda, hur inspektörens agerande påverkar besättningen. Samt resultatet av utredningen har även visat att det existerar en viss övertid runt en vettinginspektion. / Abstract I have looked at how the workloads are today onboard Swedish tankers. This work has shown the attitude to and the respondents experienced emotions by the time of the vetting inspection but also what this could lead to. During my on board training interviews were made including interviews by mail and for the investigation has also the usage of qualitative and quantitative methods. The investigation has shown that the respondents good attitude to vetting inspections, mostly worrying before the vetting inspection, well preparations, how the vetting inspector actions effects the respondents. The result of the investigation has also shown that it exists some overtime by the time of the vetting inspection.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the experiences and meanings of tourism employment for Muslim women in the Middle East, including the positive and negative aspects of this form of employment. The study was conducted in Oman, which was the research site and cultural setting for this study. The theoretical paradigm that guided this study was social constructionism. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was also used for this study in order to interpret and analyze the collected data into themes. A combination of convenience sampling and snowball technique was used to recruit participants for the interviews, resulting in a total of 9 interviews being conducted with local Muslim women working in the Oman tourism industry. The data were collected through open-ended interviews conducted face to face, using a semi structured interview format. The analysis process led to the development of seven themes. The seven main themes related to finding work in the tourism field, facing negative attitudes, challenges of tourism work, dealing with negative attitudes and challenges, the importance of tourism work in women lives, an expanded vision of tourism work, and implications for social change. The study revealed that the idea of women’s tourism work as exploitation is complex and multi-layered in Oman. Although there were some indicators of exploitation for the Omani tourism workers in this study, this form of work was also shown to be a source of benefits and form of empowerment for women. Further, the study revealed that tourism employment could also be seen as a site for women’s resistance, particularly for Muslim women seeking to change attitudes towards women, and to create a new society.

In this paper, I invoke a sociolinguistic approach to complement the historical record in order to examine the use of the word utumwa itself as it has changed to reveal distinct class and gender connotations especially in northem Swahili communities. To explore utumwa is difficult. There is no consensus with regard to what the word and its derivatives mean that applies consistently, yet it is clear that there has been a meaning shift since the nineteenth century. This paper examines the construction and transformation of a non-Westem-molded form of service in Africa. Oral traditions and terminological variation will be brought to bear on an analysis of utumwa `slavery, service` as an important concept of social change in East Africa and, in particular, on the northern Kenya coast What this term, its derivatives, and other terms associated with it have come to mean to Swahili speakers and culture bearers will be seen to mirror aspects of the history of Swahili-speaking people fi-om the 1Oth-11th century to the present.

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<p>This project is a part of the collaboration between the Swedish-Albanian Association in Mariestad and the Albanian Centre of Excellence in Tirana. The project is a preliminary feasibility study for an improved irrigation system in the mountain village Lubonja, Korça Region, Albania.</p><p>When the Albanian communism regime fell in 1990, the infrastructure degenerated and the irrigation systems where almost destroyed. Various organizations, like the World Bank, have assisted with the restoring of the systems, especially in the mountain areas. Today, the most of the systems is in functional condition.</p><p>The village of Lubonja is located in South-Eastern part of Albania. The village is a part of the Korça Region and is located 27 km from the town Korça. The fields have an altitude that varies from 930 to 870 meters above sea level and have a total approximate size of 490 hectares. Lubonja has a population of almost 560 inhabitants and the prime livelihood is farming. Today, each family is self sufficient and cultivate many kinds of crops on their fields.</p><p>There are two main streams in the region; the Lubonja River and a river from the Rehova mine area. Lubonja River comes from the mountains and flows through the village, where grey water and black water is added. The other stream is mixed with the polluted water from the old copper mine. There is also a reservoir on the hill side of the mountain which is for irrigation use only.</p><p>To calculate the needed amount of water, a small field survey has been performed. The different parts in the survey are; soil type, water quality, evaporation and climate data. The results of the field survey were compiled, with assistance of Dr. Kovaçi, Institute of Land in Tirana. It resulted in the irrigation period and the needed amount of water during the irrigation season in Lubonja. The needed amount of water varies from 1250 m3/ha to 4300 m3/ha depending on the crop and the period when irrigation is necessary is from the middle of May to the end of September.</p><p>The proposed design of the system is a combination of restoring the old canals in the area, where the system was sufficient and installing a pipe system in the area, where the old system was insufficient. The idea is to irrigate the area with the water which is now wasted from the reservoir due to leaking valves and shallow streams. To eliminate the waste of water, a pipe will lead the water from the outlet of the reservoir to a switch where there is a y-crossing. After the switch one pipe goes to the main canal and the other leads the water to area where the pipe system is implemented.</p><p>The pipe system will prepare for a usage of modern technology like drip irrigation and sprinklers. Each farmer will be able to choose how to use the water by connecting hoses to taps. Due to the high position of the reservoir the pressure in the pipes will be sufficient without using a pump.</p><p>The calculations for the system are divided into two parts. The first part is the canals, where an appropriate cross section and the needed amount of concrete are calculated. The amount of concrete for the canals is approximately 200 m3. The second part is the pipe system, where the pressure and velocity in the pipes and valves are calculated to be certain that a pump will not be needed and to get proper dimensions of the pipes. The maximum pressure is 1 471 500 Pa, the total outflow when all taps are open is 0.07m3/s and maximum velocity when tap 25 is open is 24.0 m/s.</p><p>It is important that a system like this is being implemented in close collaboration with the villagers.</p>