Any situation that causes traffic to stop or slow down creates cost for society, both in terms of lost time for the road users and increased CO2 emissions. Trafik Stockholm, a traffic management centre for Stockholm collectively run by STA, Stockholm city and Nacka municipality therefore have the responsibility to facilitate the removal of such situations. One of the means by which they do that is by sending out road assistance vehicles (RAVs) to help clearing these situations. In order to do so effectively there is a need to know the effect of emergency lights on the time it takes for the RAV to reach its destination. This thesis thus examines how the emergency lights affect the speed at which the RAVs can travel by comparing the actual speed at which the RAVs have travelled using emergency lights to the mean speed of traffic on the same highway at the same time. It is concluded that there might be a significant effect, but further studies are necessary to prove this statistically.

The number of amphibians has decreased worldwide. Causes include landscape fragmentation and habitat loss. In Sweden all amphibian species are protected and according to the EU Habitats Directive, both the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) and its habitat are protected. Inventory of amphibians is important because it shows if the environment has a good ecological status since other groups of organisms thrive in the same conditions as the amphibians. Amphibians themselves are also important in the ecosystem. In Solna, Stockholm County, an inventory of amphibians was made in seven ponds and migrating routes between them were investigated. Smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) was found in five of the ponds which indicates good conditions in breeding ponds, and great crested newts were found in two ponds. The common frog (Rana temporaria) and the common toad (Bufo bufo) were found in one of the ponds. Several major barriers exist in the study area, such as the railway, the motorway E4 and Bergshamravägen, which effectively cut off the natural areas and make it difficult for fauna to migrate. There need to be more and better migrating routes. Therefore measures are proposed for Solna municipality to get a functioning network of breeding ponds. Minor measures, such as clearing an overgrown pond where the great crested newt is present, can be helpful. Another suggestion is to create fauna lanes in tunnels for cars and pedestrians, which allows amphibians and other fauna to get past a barrier like roads. According to the ”Program för Nya Ulriksdal” a pond will be removed when a green area is to be exploited. A suggestion is that the pond should be preserved or compensatory measures shoud be performed by constructing a new pond. More costly measures, such as broad ecoducts or tunnels for passing the railway and the motorway, are also proposed. More migrating corridors should be created and fauna passages projected in urban planning. Preserving existent migrating corridors is also of importance. / Groddjuren har minskat i antal i hela världen. Orsaker till det är bland annat fragmentering av landskapet och habitatförlust. I Sverige är alla groddjursarter fridlysta och enligt EU:s Art- och habitatdirektiv ska både arten större vattensalamander (Triturus cristatus) och dess livsmiljö skyddas. Inventering av groddjur är viktig för att det visar om landskapet över lag har en bra ekologisk status, i och med att även andra organismgrupper trivs med samma förutsättningar som groddjuren. Inventering visar också vilka åtgärder som behövs för att få en god status. Groddjuren i sig har också en viktig funktion i ekosystemet. I Solna, i Stockholms län, har sju vattensamlingar inventerats med avseende på groddjur och spridningsvägarna mellan dem har undersökts. Mindre vattensalamander (Lissotriton vulgaris) förekom i fem av dammarna, vilket tyder på bra förhållanden i lekvattnen, större vattensalamander hittades i två dammar. Även vanlig groda (Rana temporaria) och vanlig padda (Bufo bufo) sågs i en damm. I undersökningsområdet finns flera kraftiga barriärer i form av till exempel järnvägen, E4:an och Bergshamravägen, som effektivt skär av naturområden och gör det svårt för groddjur och annan fauna att sprida sig. Spridningsvägarna behöver bli fler och bättre. Därför föreslås åtgärder för Solna stad för att få ett fungerande nätverk av leklokaler. Åtgärder kan vara av mindre omfattning, som att röja en övervuxen damm där större vattensalamander förekommer. Ett annat förslag är att skapa viltfiler i bil-, gång- och cykeltunnlar, som ger möjlighet för groddjur och annat vilt att ta sig förbi en barriär i form av en väg. Enligt Program för Nya Ulriksdal kommer en damm att tas bort när ett grönområde ska bebyggas. Här föreslås att dammen ska bevaras eller att en kompensationsåtgärd utförs genom att anlägga en ny damm. Mer kostsamma åtgärder som breda ekodukter eller tunnlar för att kunna passera järnvägen och motorvägen föreslås också. Över lag bör fler spridningskorridorer skapas och faunapassager planeras in vid stadsplanering. Det är också viktigt att bevara befintliga spridningskorridorer.

This thesis explores the political use of branding in international relations by focusing on the branding exercises of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the State of Qatar over the last two decades. In most of the existing literature, branding is theorised as a representational and instrumental practice that is strategically used to increase a country's competitive edge. Adopting a critical constructivist lens to the study of International Relations (IR), this thesis challenges this reading and argues instead that branding is a productive and inherently political practice that (re)produces dominant interpretations of state-identity rather than merely describing them. Based on the core constructivist claim that much of politics revolves around the competition to give meaning to the world, this thesis argues that the version of the state promoted through branding is neither neutral nor brand new, but inherently politicised and tied to the conversation and legitimation of the incumbent political regime. Inspired by the ongoing practice turn in IR, the starting point for the analysis is a focus on the display of the state through a range of everyday practices long ignored by IR scholars. In particular, it focuses on how the political leadership in both Kazakhstan and Qatar has used the urban development of their capital cities, the hosting of international sports events, and the construction of 'world-class' universities to present new ideas about their state to various inter/national audiences. Using an original data corpus of multimodal primary and secondary material, the analysis traces how branding practices produce and normalise a certain interpretation of Kazakhstani and Qatari statehood, and then interrogates how we can understand this interpretation as politicised and tied to the interests of the regime. The goal of the analysis is twofold. First, this thesis aims to elucidate how relevant instances of state- branding unfold and travel across different empirical contexts (Kazakhstan and Qatar) and cases (urban development, sports and education). Second, it aims to push current scholarly understandings by (re)conceptualising branding as a genre of contemporary identity politics, and produce broader insights about the characteristics and mechanisms of this increasingly normalised - yet often as politically non-salient dismissed - practice of international relations.