No description available.

No description available.

This is a study of English language learning for adult immigrant students in Sweden, and how it affects their integration into society. The primary aim of this study is to highlight and analyze the problems that adult immigrant students face, based on teachers beliefs, when learning English in a foreign country, and is backed up by various secondary sources in the subject as well as data collected in qualitative face-to-face interviews with teachers from adult education centres designed to help immigrant learn the native language as well as English. The results show the teacher viewpoint on the learning problems, which stem from cultural, lexical and mental blockades. They are analyzed according to the research questions and theoretical concepts, and presented with an accompanying discussion that aims to inform of the reader of the current learning situations.

This study concerns researching the need for an environmental crime intelligence system at regional and local level geared specifically for environmental crimes within the Swedish Police as well as the need for such a combined operation towards e.g. supervisory authorities. The study views the current situation of environmental crime and environmental damage in part being caused due to an environmental legal implementation deficit. The study explains and defines the need as well as initiates a theoretical systematic design for an Environmental Crime Intelligence which could help reduce the deficit and so help reduce environmental damage. An Environmental Intelligence which in operation from the national level down through the organization would be linking police, prosecutors and county administrations. Authorities – who are assumed to enable, simplify, and standardize discoveries, obligations, investigations and prosecution – would be better interlinked and processed for an improved view and control in the field of environmental crime. This study shows the need to rethink and reevaluate the current state of environmental crime prevention process in terms of priorities and chronological regard. It has shown to verify the theory of legal implementation deficiency. Besides this, the study has also shown a way to reduce that deficiency. With this in mind it has been made visible how the need for an Environmental Intelligence system on a local and regional level would with all probability do very well by current anthropogenic systems. The study finds the presence of an Environmental Intelligence a consistently desired, preferred, alternative from the perspectives of the authorities mentioned above. Many of the findings points straight towards a similarity – principally in prioritization and procedures – through the intent and purpose of research for reducing environmental crime on an international level. This is viewed as a suitable segment of the methodological foundation.

This research explores the affective responses of five upper-secondary English ESL/EFL students using computer-mediated peer feedback (CMPF), in a writing assignment. The pragmatic approach to the research makes use of a thematic analysis using, motivation, anxiety, attitude, and self-confidence. These themes were extrapolated from Krashen’s Affective filter theory because they are hypothesized to affect second language acquisition. Additionally, the four themes offer a pragmatic framework for exploring student’s affective experiences. The primary data was collected through a series of semi-structured interviews. The interviews were recorded and transcribed to create the primary data. The participants reveal that their learning environment was characterized by distinctly, positive affective responses, low affective filters and favorable conditions for second language acquisition. It is noteworthy that the lack of real time communication alleviated communication apprehension, but also contributed to test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation. The minor negative affective responses documented in the study were offset by consistent and constant use of both the computer mediated learning platform, and peer feedback. The results of this study are worth consideration for academics and professionals who are interested in how affective responses impact second language acquisition.

First of all, general principals of contemporary macroeconometric models are described in this dissertation together with a brief sketch of alternative approaches. Consequently, the macroeconomic model of a monetary policy is formulated in order to describe fundamental relationships between real and nominal economy. The model originated from a linear one by making some of the parameters endogenous. Despite this nonlinearity, I expressed my model in a state space form with time-varying coefficients, which can be solved by a standard Kalman filter. Using outcomes of this algorithm, likelihood function was then calculated and maximized in order to obtain estimates of the parameters. The theory of identifiability of a parametric structure is also described. Finally, the presented theory is applied on the formulated model of the euro area. In this model, the European Central Bank was assumed to behave according to the Taylor rule. The econometric estimation, however, showed that this common assumption in macroeconomic modeling is not adequate in this case. The results from econometric estimation and analysis of identifiability also indicated that the interest rate policy of the European Central Bank has only a very limited effect on real economic activity of the European Union. Both results are influential, as monetary policy in the last two decades has been modeled as interest rate policy with the Taylor rule in most macroeconometric models.