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The Swedish Armed Forces as a big public actor own different media channels and promote life as a soldier from different angles. They create marketing campaigns, which are available widely on YouTube or Facebook. The increased activity on social media platforms, especially Facebook, have created a field for research. There are multiple Facebook pages, from which one can acquire information regarding life at a given regiment. They can be divided into official and unofficial Facebook pages. The fascinating aspect of this division is how differently each of the Facebook pages approaches the audience and how differently they are shaping their strategic communication and reputation, despite owning officially issued guidelines on how the Swedish Armed Forces ought to be presented in the online world. Through multimodal analysis with a shift towards the systematic linguistic in the framework of Machin and Halliday, official Facebook page of Livgardet and unofficial Facebook page of 12:e motoriserade skyttebataljonen have been analyzed to see whether the messages that the Swedish Armed Forces are conveying are aligned. Adding netnography in the frame of Kozinets, the audience has been studied to inquire whether there is a different purpose of using the official and unofficial Facebook page.  The results of this study shows, that the unofficial Facebook page is coherent in a different way, they might not be following the strategic communication guidelines strictly, but they are coherent in their actions and posts, whereas the official Facebook page, which is strictly following the strategic communication guidelines and does not appear as coherent with their actions. At the same time, the audience is using the unofficial Facebook page reconnect with the memories they have from when they did their duty. On the other hand, the official Facebook page is used by the audience as a place to show their appreciation and pride in the Swedish Armed Forces.

Dans cette thèse, nous abordons le problème fondamental de l'accès au spectre opportuniste dans un système de communication multi-canal. Plus précisément, nous considérons un système de communication dans lequel un utilisateur a accès à de multiples canaux, tout en étant limité à la détection et la transmission sur un sous-ensemble de canaux. Nous explorons comment l'utilisateur intelligent exploite ses observations passées et les propriétés stochastiques de ces canaux afin de maximiser son débit. Formellement, nous fournissons une analyse générique sur le problème d'accès au spectre opportuniste en nous basant sur le problème de `restless multi-bandit’ (RMAB), l'une des généralisations les plus connues du problème classique de multi-armed bandit (MAB), un problème fondamental dans la théorie de décision stochastique. Malgré les importants efforts de la communauté de recherche dans ce domaine, le problème RMAB dans sa forme générique reste encore ouvert. Jusqu'à aujourd'hui, très peu de résultats sont connus sur la structure de la politique optimale. L'obtention de la politique optimale pour un problème RMAB général est intraçable dû la complexité de calcul exponentiel. Par conséquent, une alternative naturelle est de se focaliser sur la politique myopique qui maximise la récompense à immédiate, tout en ignorant celles du futur. Donc, nous développons trois axiomes caractérisant une famille de fonctions que nous appelons fonctions régulières, qui sont génériques et pratiquement importantes. Nous établissons ensuite l'optimalité de la politique myopique lorsque la fonction de récompense peut être exprimée comme une fonction régulière et le facteur de discount est borné par un seuil déterminé par la fonction de récompense. Nous illustrons également l'application des résultats pour analyser une classe de problèmes RMAB dans l'accès opportuniste. Ensuite, nous étudions un problème plus difficile, où l'utilisateur doit configurer le nombre de canaux à accéder afin de maximiser son utilité (par exemple, le débit). Après avoir montré la complexité exponentielle du problème, nous développons une stratégie heuristique v-step look-ahead. Dans la stratégie développée, le paramètre v permet de parvenir à un compromis souhaité entre l'efficacité sociale et de la complexité de calcul. Nous démontrons les avantages de la stratégie proposée via des simulations numériques sur plusieurs scénarios typiques. / In the thesis, we address the fundamental problem of opportunistic spectrum access in a multi-channel communication system. Specifically, we consider a communication system in which a user has access to multiple channels, but is limited to sensing and transmitting only on one at a given time. We explore how the smart user should exploit past observations and the knowledge of the stochastic properties of these channels to maximize its transmission rate by switching channels opportunistically. Formally, we provide a generic analysis on the opportunistic spectrum access problem by casting the problem into the restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, one of the most well-known generalizations of the classic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, which is of fundamental importance in stochastic decision theory. Despite the significant research efforts in the field, the RMAB problem in its generic form still remains open. Until today, very little result is reported on the structure of the optimal policy. Obtaining the optimal policy for a general RMAB problem is often intractable due to the exponential computation complexity. Hence, a natural alternative is to seek a simple myopic policy maximizing the short-term reward. Therefore, we develop three axioms characterizing a family of functions which we refer to as regular functions, which are generic and practically important. We then establish the optimality of the myopic policy when the reward function can be expressed as a regular function and the discount factor is bounded by a closed-form threshold determined by the reward function. We also illustrate how the derived results, generic in nature, are applied to analyze a class of RMAB problems arising from multi-channel opportunistic access. Next, we further investigate the more challenging problem where the user has to decide the number of channels to sense in each slot in order to maximize its utility (e.g., throughput). After showing the exponential complexity of the problem, we develop a heuristic v-step look-ahead strategy. In the developed strategy, the parameter v allows to achieve a desired tradeoff between social efficiency and computation complexity. We demonstrate the benefits of the proposed strategy via numerical experiments on several typical settings.

Sveriges luftvärn står inför stora utmaningar vilka till stor del har orsakats av ett förändrat omvärldsläge med större osäkerheter. Osäkerheterna har i sin tur lett till att efterfrågan på förmågan luftvärn ökat och getts mer utrymme i samhällsdebatten. Konsekvensen av detta är att nya system ska införas, både på verkanssidan, bland ledningssystemen och bland sambandssystemen. Samtidigt ska en återaktiverad värnplikt implementeras och utgöra grunden för den framtida rekryteringen. Slutligen skall även de gamla systemen vidmakthållas med tillräckligt hög tillgänglighet, både gällande personal- och materieltillgång, så att de kan ingå i försvaret. Den beskrivna situationen innebär att ett avsevärt tekniksteg skall tas. Utmaningen denna studie fördjupar sig i behandlar organisationens förutsättningar att lyckas rekrytera tillräckligt många och tillräckligt duktiga ungdomar med förutsättningar att kunna underhålla denna teknik. Studien inriktas på värnpliktiga med tekniska befattningar och med en bakgrund i teknikinriktat studieförberedande gymnasieprogram. De är en eftertraktad kategori individer på den svenska arbetsmarknaden och många företag deltar i jakten på deras kompetens. Studien har genomförts kvalitativt genom djupintervjuer med individerna. Resultatet av empirin har sedan lett fram till slutsatserna att Försvarsmaktens marknadsföring inte träffar den beskrivna målgruppen. De individer vilka är avgörande för om organisationen kan klara sina uppgifter i framtiden känner endast vagt till Försvarsmakten och förknippar den inte med en teknisk yrkeskarriär. Samtidigt har det visat sig att den främsta påverkanskällan, deras föräldrar, är dåligt insatt i vad en fortsättning efter värnplikten kan innebära. Avgörande för hur den här kategorin individer väljer anställning är hur pass väl deras intressen och visioner passar in på det de uppfattat att Försvarsmakten erbjuder. Detta sammantaget skapar stora osäkerheter kring myndighetens förutsättningar att klara den framtida personalförsörjningen. Hur skall luftvärnet attrahera denna relativt lilla grupp med teknikintresserade ungdomar för att lyckas med en kraftig tillväxt och ett stort tekniksprång samt även behålla äldre materiel i drift? / The ground-based air defence of Sweden face some dire challenges in the near future. These have been caused by multiple converging reasons, the foremost of these being a change in the strategic situation in and around the Baltic Sea. This change has led to a publicly increased demand for army organic, ground based air defence capabilities. This in turn means that the government has ordered new systems to be introduced, both missile systems for intercepting airborne threats, new command and control systems and lastly, new communication systems. Parallel to the described shift in technology, recruitment through conscription has been rein­stalled. The last part of this complex situation is comprised of maintaining all of the legacy systems for use by the national defence forces. Taking such a large technological step raises demands of recruiting a large amount of techno­logically interested young people. The aim of this study is to broaden the understanding of Sweden’s ability to succeed with this endeavour. We have interviewed conscripts during their basic training to become mechanics and maintenance personnel at the Lv 6 regiment in Halm­stad. All our subjects have attended upper school and studied technology intended for pre­paring them for higher education. They are attractive to the general employment market and must be won in the battle for talent. This study has been designed using qualitative methods mainly comprised of individual inter­views. The results from these interviews have been analysed using an inspired by grounded theory approach. Our results have then been analysed a second time on an organisational level and compared to findings in the area of Employer branding. Our main findings are that marketing and informational campaigns, carried out by the Swe­dish armed forces aren’t aimed towards this category of young people. They have no prior experience of the armed forces and the messages sent out are not registered by our subjects. Our study indicates that the parents and closest family project a large amount of influence on these young people. Sadly, this category of influencers also lacks knowledge and information about the armed forces. The studied category of young people chooses their employers through how well their interests match with the perceived job offering. All of this taken in mind raises a question of the ability to succeed with recruitment goals for this category of youths.

No description available.

This paper examines the hypothesis that a change in the elite increases the probability of armed conflict onset. The paper combines the newly constructed WhoGov dataset on cabinet members, with UCDP data on armed conflicts and rebel group. It analyzes changes in the retention rate among cabinet members and average years in cabinet, and how they affect armed conflict – measured as armed conflict onset and rebel group onset. A linear regression model, with country- and year fixed effects, in addition to time-varying control variables, is applied to test the main hypothesis. In addition, three heterogeneity tests are conducted. First, the paper examines whether there are any differences between democracies and autocracies. Second, it examines the differences between changes in cabinet size (widening or shrinking). Third, it analyzes if the effects are bigger for large changes in the elite. Four main conclusions are reached in the paper. First, the results indicates that a decrease in retention rate increases the probability for both conflict and rebel onset. The magnitudes of the estimated effects seem to be sizeable. They are larger in conflict onsets than rebel onsets, in relation to their respective means. Second, for armed conflict onset, the results are driven by autocracies. Third, the probability for armed conflict is larger following a large change in the elites (retention rate). Fourth, no difference in changes to cabinet size is observed.

No description available.

Huvudsyftet med föreliggande studie är att belysa soldaters upplevelser av stress under utlandstjänst, samt stress i övergången utlandstjänst till hemkomst med fokus på fysisk aktivitet och träningsvanor. Vidare var det av intresse att studera soldaters upplevelse av hjälp/stöd. Studien genomfördes via ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt utifrån två semistrukturerade intervjuguider och två olika intervjutillfällen. Samtliga åtta deltagare var män mellan 2553 år gamla med erfarenheter från olika typer av förband samt från olika missioner. Utlandstjänstgöringarna utfördes i länder som Afghanistan, Bosnien och Kosovo. Upplevd stress under mission beskrevs som rastlöshet vid ledig tid på campen eller en oro inför uppdrag. Under uppdrag kunde deltagarna uppleva kumulativ stress i ovissheten att något kan hända dem eller kollegorna. Deltagarna gav uttryck för liknande symptom vid hemkomst kopplat till stress då rastlöshet under ledigheten hemma beskrev som utmanade. Fysisk aktivitet visade sig ha en stressreducerande effekt vid rastlöshet och oro under utlandstjänst samt i övergången utlandstjänst till hemkomst. Dessa fynd kopplas till en diskussionsdel utifrån föreskrivna referensramar, samt även förslag till framtida forskning och implikationer. / The main purpose of the present study is to illustrate soldiers experinces of stress during deployment and in the transition from deployment to homecoming with focus on physical activity, stress and exercise habits. Further on, it was of interest to study the soldiers experience of help/support. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach from two semistructured interviewguides and two interview occasions. The soldiers age were between 2553 years. The soldiers in this study came from various types of units as well as various deployments that took place in countries such as Afghanistan, Kosovo and BosniaHercegovina. Stress during deployment was described as perceived restlessness during freetime on the camp. During operations could the participants exeperience cumulative stress wich could be shown as anxiety becausee of the uncertainty that something could happend to them or their colleagues in the unit. The participants expressed similar symptoms at the homecoming related to stress as restlessness during the holiday and anxiety. Physical activity was found to have a stressreducing effect during deployment and in transition deployment to homecoming. Results of the study were associated with prescribed theoretical frames of reference in the discussion. Finally suggestions for future research and implications are provided.

No description available.

This thesis examines the potentially restorative power of adaptive sport, based upon the experiences of traumatically injured British military personnel. It investigates how participation in adaptive sport may contribute to personnel’s adaptation of identity and the re-establishment of their meaning of life post-traumatic injury. Through a series of in-depth interviews, I attempted to gain a greater understanding of the experience of and recovery from life-changing injuries, seeking to comprehend the impact of adaptive sport in this process. In line with current research in the field of disability studies, this research adopted a social construction approach. The results of the analysis are set within the social model of disability in order to try to highlight the impacts of the perceptions of disability, embedded in the dominant medical model discourse, on the participant’s lives. Key findings highlighted by this research are i; the influence that the medical model discourse has on the British military mentality and their approach to injury, ii; the process of identity adaptation and the importance of adaptive-sport-participation to provide focus and help individuals realise their potential, iii; the experience of adaptive sport as a tool to bring back meaning of life and iv; the process of ‘normalisation’ and the way individuals are self-determined to restore some sense of normality by participating in adaptive sport and positive adaptation to trauma, whereby adaptive sport acts as a tool to set the right conditions for individuals to experience positive phenomena. Throughout this thesis, I have attempted to provide an open and reflexive account of the whole research process in order to make the reader aware of the possible effects of my own background on the research outcomes.