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This thesis consists of three papers that examine college choice and earnings among university graduates in Sweden. Paper [I] analyzes how geographical accessibility to higher education affects university enrollment decisions in Sweden. The empirical findings show that the probability of enrollment in university education increases with accessibility to university education. The results also indicate that accessibility adds to the likelihood of attending a university within the region of residence. Both these findings are robust with regard to different specifications of accessibility. The empirical results furthermore indicate that the enrollment decisions of individuals with a less privileged background are more sensitive to accessibility to university education than are the decisions of individuals from a more favorable background. Paper [II] examines the effect on earnings of graduating from five different college groups. The paper relies on selection on observables and linear regression to identify the earnings effect of college choice. Contrary to the majority of previous Swedish studies, we do not find any systematic differences in estimated earnings between college graduates from the different college groups. This finding does not only hold when considering all college graduates, but also when focusing on men and women separately as well as when considering college graduates in two specific fields of education. The results suggest that an estimator of the earnings effects of college choice that does not properly adjust for ability is likely to be substantially biased. Paper [III] estimates the causal effect on earnings of graduating from old universities rather than new universities/university colleges. The study compares estimates from several different matching methods and linear regression. We cannot find any significant differences in earnings between graduates from the two groups of colleges. This holds for male and female sub-samples covering all majors, as well as male and female sub-samples covering two broad fields of education. The results are robust with regard to different methods of propensity score matching and regression adjustment. Furthermore, the results indicate little sensitivity with regard to the empirical support in the data and alternative specifications of the propensity scores.

Purpose/Aim: In the information and communication technology society (ICT) we live in today it is easy to feel that we are constantly expected to be available. The daily contact with the Internet and the use of cell phones has changed our way to communicate. With this in mind in combination with the increased stress among young adults my aim is to investigate how young adults, aged 23-26 years, experience to be constantly connected and available through the Internet and the cell phone. What are their opinions, attitudes and feelings about what this entails in their lives? Material/Method: The essay is based on four focus group interviews with sixteen students from Uppsala University aged 23-26, two groups consisting of women and two groups consisting of men. The ICT & Internet research is developing rapidly which led me to do an exploratory study that is hypothesis-generating and which I hope can be used for forthcoming research of the consequences of the ICT society. The empiric result has been analyzed from a behavioural science perspective. Main results: The results have been interesting from several perspectives. The focus groups seem to think that the Internet and cell phone use is the best thing that has happened. They are so-called "Multitaskers" and have no problems to do several things simultaneously. The relationship between ICT and stress becomes slightly more noticeable among the girls. I dare to say that the constant availability do result in a certain stress, which I based on the clear statements about stress that came up between the lines. The focus groups are highly dependent on both their cell phone and access to Internet. They have also developed new cell phone behaviours that are customized to different situations and people.

The first two papers in this dissertation discuss a fairly recently developed research field, Space Syntax, and how the findings in this field may be used to understand spatial economic patterns such as geographic distribution of market rents. Both papers use standard econometric methods to investigate the relationship between rents and the so called integration value developed within Space Syntax. The integration value may be understood as a measure of the accessibility of a certain location in a street network. The measure is constructed using tools from graph theory and uses the shape of the street network as its only input. The papers estimate hedonic models of office and retail leases from central Stockholm to test whether the integration value can help explain rents. A statistically significant effect of integration value on both office and retail rent is found. It appears as if Space Syntax adds important information to the understanding of intraurban rent patterns. Illiquidity is a main feature of most property markets and market participants are therefore directed to property appraisals to obtain information about market values. The reliability of property appraisals is therefore an important research topic. The third paper studies the “rationality” of valuations by testing if capitalisation (cap) rates from individual discounted cash-flow (DCF) valuations are consistent with economic theory. Standard econometrics is used to study the variation in cap rates. For the most part the results support the hypothesis that appraisers are “rational” in the above mentioned sense. Illiquidity of direct property also poses a problem when constructing property price indices.  Lack of price observations and heterogeneity among the few observations available is likely to introduce noise in price indices based on transactions. Valuations are therefore often used instead to construct indices. These indices however suffer from a bias due to so called “appraisal smoothing”. In the fourth paper it is shown that, given certain assumptions, one may filter out noise in a transaction-based price index by regressing it on a valuation-based index (contemporaneous and lagged one period). The procedure may in some circumstances improve pure valuation- or transaction-based indices. / QC 20101201

Tio procent av Sveriges befolkning har någon form av funktionsnedsättning. Var tionde person har alltså särskilda behov i sitt resande och är därmed beroende av att hela destinationens miljö är tillgänglig. Tillgänglighet är någonting som Stockholm Stad arbetar med då de har som mål att år 2010 vara världens mest tillgängliga huvudstad. Stockholm är en destination och en destination består av många olika aktörer, både kommersiella och icke kommersiella. Studien syftar därför dels till att undersöka om, och i så fall hur, en god tillgänglighet i Stockholm skulle påverka de enskilda turistiska aktörerna på destinationen. Studien syftar även till att undersöka vad dessa aktörer har för inställning till och motiv för tillgänglighetsanpassningar. Tillgänglighet kan studeras utifrån olika aspekter men denna studie kommer främst att behandla fysisk tillgänglighet utifrån ett etiskt och ekonomiskt perspektiv. I denna studie används en kvalitativ metod och ett hermeneutiskt synsätt. För att undersöka tillgänglighetsaspekter i turismbranschen intervjuades respondenter från Stockholm Stad, Stockholm Visitors Board, Sveriges Hotell och Restaurangföretagare, Clarion Hotel Stockholm, Hotell Birger Jarl, Nordic Light Hotel och Scandic Hotels. I studien används artiklar som behandlar etik och ansvarsfullt företagande (bland annat Corporate Social Responsibility) samt på vilket sätt tillgänglighet kan vara till godo för turismföretag och samhället. Studien presenterar även tidigare forskning som belyser betydelsen av samverkan på en destination och svårigheter i att separera destinationen och de turistiska aktörerna från varandra. Dessutom presenteras lagar och regler kring tillgänglighetsanpassning för att ge en övergripande bild av vad som lagmässigt krävs av aktörerna. Resultatet i undersökningen visar bland annat att turismföretag anser sig ta ett samhällsansvar när de gör tillgänglighetsanpassningar. Företagen vill vara etiska och tillgodose alla kunder, vilket inkluderar personer med funktionsnedsättning. Aktörerna anser samtidigt att ökad tillgänglighet skapar konkurrensfördelar då de får ett bredare kundunderlag samt bättre rykte och image genom sina anpassningar. De vill även vara affärsdrivande, det vill säga att investeringarna måste stå i proportion till kostnaderna. Med andra ord, om investeringar i tillgänglighetsanpassning inte skulle generera tillräckligt stora fördelar skulle företag inte anpassa mer än vad lagen kräver. Den etiska handlingen gällande tillgänglighetsanpassningar sker alltså inte alltid i osjälviskt syfte utan för att skapa ekonomiska fördelar genom gott rykte och bredare kundunderlag. Resultatet visar även att turismaktörerna i Stockholm skulle gynnas av att staden blev världens mest tillgängliga huvudstad. Detta skulle resultera i att staden fick fler besökare vilket i sin tur skulle ge fler affärstillfällen för de enskilda turismföretagen. / Ten percent of Sweden’s inhabitants have some kind of disability. That is, every ten person has special needs when it comes to travelling, and therefore is depended on whether the destination is accessible or not. In their goal for year 2010 Stockholm City wants to be the most accessible capital in the whole world. The destination involves many different operators, both commercial and non-commercial. This study is a research about how good the accessibility in Stockholm is, and how this would affect the individual tourism operators in Stockholm. Furthermore, this study’s purpose is to find out what the operators think about the accessibility adjustments. Accessibility can be studied from different aspects, but this specific study will first of all treat the accessibility from an ethic and economical perspective. Qualitative methods have been used in this study, in order to investigate accessibility within the tourism line. Respondents from Stockholm City, Stockholm Visitors Board, the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Association, Clarion Hotel Stockholm, Hotel Birger Jarl, the Nordic Light Hotel, and Scandic Hotels, have been interviewed. In this study articles about ethics and responsible spirits of enterprise are used (for instance Corporate Social Responsibility), as well as in what way accessibility can be good for tourism enterprises and the society. The study also presents earlier research that brings up the signification of co-operation at a destination, plus how it is difficult to separate the destination and the tourism operators. Additionally, laws and rules about accessibility are presented to give an overall picture about what the operators need to do according to the law. The results show that the operators believe that they take liability against the society when they do accessibility adjustments. The operators want to be ethic and satisfy all customers, disabled people included. The operators also believe that increased access create competition advantages when they get more customers, plus a better reputation and image. They want to make profits, which means that the investments must be in proportion to the expenses. In other words, if the investments wouldn’t be profitable enough the operators wouldn’t adjust more than the law says. The ethic deed about accessibility adjustments is not always an unselfish cause but a way to make a profit by good reputation and more customers. The analysis shows that the operators in Stockholm would be favored if the city became the most accessible capital in the world. This would result in that the city got more visitors, which would generate more business opportunities for the individual tourism operators.

Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to estimate if imports of goods at the municipal level have an effect on labour productivity. The theoretical framework used in the thesis is based on the concept of accessibility, city growth in connection to imports, networks and nodes, clusters and economies of scale. Seven independent variables were chosen for the regression, three import accessibility variables to estimate if there is a connection between imports and productivity and Technology Gap, Population Density, Distance to Stockholm and Time. The regression model itself is built on the regression model in Fingleton (2001) but reformulated in this master thesis. Due to high collinearity between the accessibility variables they were added together to measure total accessibility. Regression results showed significant t-statistics for all variables included confirming that there is a relationship between imports of goods and labour productivity. / Sammanfattning Syftet i denna magisteruppsats är att analysera om import av produkter på kommunal nivå är korrelerad med kommunal arbetsproduktivitet. Det teoretiska kapitlet är baserat på konceptet tillgänglighet, tillväxt och import i stadsregioner, nätverk och noder samt skalekonomi. Sju testvariabler valdes för regressionsmodellen som är baserad på Fingleton (2001). De viktigaste variablerna i modellen är inomkommunal‐, inomregional‐, och extern tillgänglighet till import. Resterande variabler i regressionsestimeringen mäter skillnad i teknologi mellan kommuner, populationsdensitet, avstånd till Stockholm samt tid. På grund av hög multikollinearitet mellan tillgänglighetsvariablerna estimerades modellen om genom att använda total tillgänglighet. Regressionen visade signifikanta t‐värden för alla variabler vilket bekräftar att det finns ett samband mellan import av produkter och arbetsproduktivitet på kommunal nivå.

<p>As members of the adaptive immune response, T- and B- cells express unique antigen receptors generated from antigen receptor loci. These loci encode multiple Variable (V), Diversity (D), and Joining (J) gene segments. Through a process known as V(D)J recombination, genomic rearrangements occur to generate a unique antigen receptor proteins. During each stage of lymphocyte development, antigen receptor loci are epigenetically regulated. The epigenetic regulation promotes and inhibits V(D)J recombination through different mechanisms. To generate an antigen receptor protein, the substrates for rearrangement (recombination signal sequences, RSSs) must be made accessible to the recombination machinery. Moreover, once an antigen receptor locus has rearranged and produced a successful in-frame protein, a mechanism known as allelic exclusion prevents further recombination.</p><p>The nucleosome can positively and negatively regulate V(D)J recombination. Therefore, we defined the in vivo nucleosome organization of accessible and inaccessible RSSs on the Tcr loci. We used Tcrb and Tcra alleles which lack various cis-elements (e.g. enhancers and promoters) and terminate transcription. By comparing nucleosome organization and histone octamer occupancy, we found that accessible alleles are characterized by lower histone octamer occupancy and in some cases movement of nucleosomes. Also, we found that some these changes are mediated by transcription through the RSS. We concluded that one mechanism by which cis-elements epigenetically regulate RSS accessibility is by histone octamer loss and nucleosome repositioning and that some of these changes are mediated by transcription.</p><p>In addition, we further investigated how allelic exclusion prevents Tcrb locus recombination in CD4, CD8 double positive (DP) thymocytes. A previous study had introduced the Tcra enhancer (E&alpha;) into the middle of the Tcrb locus to test if allelic exclusion was mediated solely by RSS accessibility. That study found that E&alpha; could force RSS accessibility in DP thymocytes, but V&beta; RSS accessibility did not overcome additional mechanisms involved in allelic exclusion. One potential mechanism that has been suggested in the literature is changes in locus conformation. Thus, we tested if RSS accessibility and locus conformation together mediate allelic exclusion. We generated two alleles that overcome changes in RSS accessibility, due to the presence of E&alpha; and that overcome changes in locus conformation, due to a decrease in distance between V&beta; and DJ&beta; RSSs. We found that both alleles are accessible in DP thymocytes and we detected V&beta; to DJ&beta; recombination in DP thymocytes. Therefore, the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate Tcrb allelic exclusion consists of changes in RSS accessibility and changes in locus conformation.</p> / Dissertation

While credibility perception on the Web is a well-researched topic across multiple disciplines, extant studies have not considered nonvisual modalities of Web access. This research explores how Web users who are blind or visually impaired perceive the credibility of online information and how the screen reader used by them to interact with the Web mediates the process. Credibility perception was studied in the context of the screen reader users’ everyday information practices, examining in depth the effect of Web accessibility on their online information interactions, information practices and credibility perception. Adopting an exploratory approach, a sequential multimethods research design was used. Between April and July 2008 data were collected from adult screen reader users residing in Ontario, Canada through an electronic questionnaire survey (N=60) to identify salient issues, which were then examined deeper through semi-structured interviews with a subsample (N=13) during June 2009. Hands-on online information activities (with participant observation and think-aloud protocol) were also conducted during the interview session. Primary findings emerged through qualitative content analysis of descriptive data, with quantitative results guiding and supplementing the analysis. Online information credibility perception is found to be a dynamic and social process. It is governed by users’ assumptions based on their past experiences, personal knowledge/beliefs and social inputs. Assumptions evolve over time and usage into personal heuristics. The credibility perception process spans three phases—prediction, evaluation and corroboration—permeating the information seeking, using and sharing practices of users. Evaluation of website and web content depends on users’ online interaction proficiency and is bounded by the interface affordances provided by the screen reader and the amount of meta-information provided by the websites for interpreting visual/spatial features. Community support scaffolds users towards more effective technology management and credibility perception. Therefore, promoting inclusion in the online participatory culture will enhance the information practices of screen reader users.

Syfte: Syftet med studien var att kartlägga och beskriva tillgängligheten på gym för rullstolsburna personer. Undersökningsmetod: Studien var en deskriptiv observationsstudie. Undersökningen var en tvärsnittsstudie, då mätningar gjordes vid ett tillfälle. Datainsamlingen utfördes genom strukturerade observationer av olika bedömningsområden, t.ex. närliggande utomhusmiljö, entré, träningslokal, omklädningsrum m.m. med hjälp av en egen utarbetad checklista. Resultat: Resultatet visade att hinder i tillgänglighet i huvudsak inte fanns i den närliggande utomhusmiljön runt gymmet. Däremot framkom problem med trappor/trappsteg, höga trösklar och tunga dörrar utan automatik vid entrén, samt trappor och nivåskillnader i omklädningsrum och duschutrymmen. Även avsaknad av hissar och handikappanpassade toaletter var vanligt förekommande hinder i tillgängligheten. Av resultatet framgick att störst tillgänglighet fanns inom bedömningsområdet "Gymlokal". Slutsats: Resultatet visade att inget gym var fullt tillgängligt i samtliga bedömningsområden.Mycket kvarstår att göra gällande tillgängligheten på gym för rullstolsburna personer. Många hinder ansåg vi dock vara enkelt avhjälpta hinder, till exempel utjämning av nivåskillnader, avfasning av trösklar och uppsättning av automatiska dörröppnare. Den här studien kan ge en ökad förståelse för vilka faktorer i gymmiljön som är hinder för tillgängligheten. Det skulle då kunna öka medvetenheten om vilka åtgärder som kan göra gymmen mer tillgängliga för rullstolsburna personer.

While credibility perception on the Web is a well-researched topic across multiple disciplines, extant studies have not considered nonvisual modalities of Web access. This research explores how Web users who are blind or visually impaired perceive the credibility of online information and how the screen reader used by them to interact with the Web mediates the process. Credibility perception was studied in the context of the screen reader users’ everyday information practices, examining in depth the effect of Web accessibility on their online information interactions, information practices and credibility perception. Adopting an exploratory approach, a sequential multimethods research design was used. Between April and July 2008 data were collected from adult screen reader users residing in Ontario, Canada through an electronic questionnaire survey (N=60) to identify salient issues, which were then examined deeper through semi-structured interviews with a subsample (N=13) during June 2009. Hands-on online information activities (with participant observation and think-aloud protocol) were also conducted during the interview session. Primary findings emerged through qualitative content analysis of descriptive data, with quantitative results guiding and supplementing the analysis. Online information credibility perception is found to be a dynamic and social process. It is governed by users’ assumptions based on their past experiences, personal knowledge/beliefs and social inputs. Assumptions evolve over time and usage into personal heuristics. The credibility perception process spans three phases—prediction, evaluation and corroboration—permeating the information seeking, using and sharing practices of users. Evaluation of website and web content depends on users’ online interaction proficiency and is bounded by the interface affordances provided by the screen reader and the amount of meta-information provided by the websites for interpreting visual/spatial features. Community support scaffolds users towards more effective technology management and credibility perception. Therefore, promoting inclusion in the online participatory culture will enhance the information practices of screen reader users.