Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere has been described as outdated and incompatible with 21st century democracies. Among other things, Habermas’ initial formulation excluded the state from the public sphere. Recently, a revised model of the public sphere has emerged that positions the state and other law-making bodies at its centre. Although some theorists have embraced this revised model, others continue to exclude the state or oversimplify its role. While some research has examined how parliaments fit into this revised model, no research has been published on this in a Canadian context. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by answering the research question: Does the Canadian House of Commons constitute a form of the public sphere? To answer this question, the Canadian House of Commons is explored along three dimensions of the public sphere – structure, representation, and interaction. This system of classification conforms to the essential function and institutional criteria of classical theory and also accounts for revised models of the public sphere. Ultimately, this work argues that the Canadian House of Commons satisfies the structural and representational dimensions of the public sphere. Its interactional dimension, however, is found to be inconsistent with public sphere theory due to a lack of real deliberation and the pervasiveness of party politics.

After a court imposed desegregation plan ended in 1996, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana school district created neighborhood attendance zones for its schools, followed by a series of attendance zone changes. We use data from 1994 to 2002 to examine the impact of changes in school characteristics on simultaneous determination of house prices and liquidity in the market. A simultaneous equations model of sales price and tine-on-market is adopted that extends the hedonic price model by controlling for localized neighborhood market conditions. Our empirical results show that improving and declining school performance can have asymmetric capitalization effects. Further, as indicated by the search-market model, liquidity absorbs part of the capitalization of school quality; for example, declining school performance prolongs houses’ marketing time.

The late Arthur Silver Morton has contributed immensely to our understanding and preservation of western Canadian history. One of Mortons joys was locating remains of long forgotten fur trade posts. As a result, a large number of the Saskatchewan fur trade posts that we know of were located and recorded by Morton. The majority of Mortons investigations took place throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Morton consulted whatever historic sources were available to him at the time: numerous historic documents, ethnographic accounts and local histories.<p> There has been archaeological evidence that suggests Morton misidentified numerous fur trade post sites. For example, research at the Hudsons Bay Companys South Branch House (1786-1794), which Morton identified in 1944, has sparked some controversy as to whether or not it is that particular post. As a result, this provides the author with an excellent chance to examine how Morton identified Saskatchewan fur trade posts and to determine through archaeological excavations and historical documents the accuracy of Mortons historical site designation at South Branch House.<p> A critical approach to Mortons work will determine how accurate his work is for contemporary archaeological investigations of fur trade posts. Furthermore, this thesis may provide historical archaeologists with insights as to how to go about identifying fur trade posts, which will contribute to our overall understanding of the western Canadian fur trade.

Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere has been described as outdated and incompatible with 21st century democracies. Among other things, Habermas’ initial formulation excluded the state from the public sphere. Recently, a revised model of the public sphere has emerged that positions the state and other law-making bodies at its centre. Although some theorists have embraced this revised model, others continue to exclude the state or oversimplify its role. While some research has examined how parliaments fit into this revised model, no research has been published on this in a Canadian context. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by answering the research question: Does the Canadian House of Commons constitute a form of the public sphere? To answer this question, the Canadian House of Commons is explored along three dimensions of the public sphere – structure, representation, and interaction. This system of classification conforms to the essential function and institutional criteria of classical theory and also accounts for revised models of the public sphere. Ultimately, this work argues that the Canadian House of Commons satisfies the structural and representational dimensions of the public sphere. Its interactional dimension, however, is found to be inconsistent with public sphere theory due to a lack of real deliberation and the pervasiveness of party politics.

What is home, and why are we drawn to spaces which elicit this feeling within us? Why is it that we are immediately able to achieve a type of rapport with some spaces, while others remain indifferent to us? What is it about home that makes it such a special place? These are questions that would give pause to many designers. We spend so much time learning about the history of architecture, the science of buildings, and the economics of development, but how many of us can say with certainty that they can make a space in which an individual will feel at home? Can we tell our clients, in no uncertain terms, that we know how to make their lives better through design? The thesis seeks to establish the importance of the concept of home to our development as individuals and our ongoing psychological and physical well being, as well as demonstrate the connection between what recent psychological study has found to make us feel comfortable or “at home”, and factors over which architects hold sway. While previously thought of as ethereal, the feeling and space of home are too important to continue to allow their creation be left to chance. Research, both empirical and otherwise has granted us knowledge of how individuals communicate with spaces, and we are thus able to create spaces which will be more in tune with our entire being. It is our responsibility to use this knowledge to the benefit of our clients and the credibility of our profession.

This project examines Cather’s experimentation with conflicting voices of narrative authority in the presentation of four central female characters in The Professor’s House, using St. Peter and an entity termed the implied narrator as lenses through which we view other characters. The project is broken down into four chapters, each dealing one addressing the central issues involving that specific female character.

Byggsektorn står för en stor del av energi- och materialanvändandet i Sverige idag och för att verka mot en mer hållbar byggsektor startades Bygga-bo-dialogen. Ett av dialogens åtaganden har varit att ta fram ett klassningssystem för byggnader; Miljöklassning av byggnader. Andra sätt att åskådliggöra produkters miljöbelastning är miljömärkningar såsom Svanenmärkning. Denna rapport tillämpar båda dessa sätt på ett småhus som kallas för Eco House och ska peka på skillnader och likheter mellan systemen. Svanenmärkning och miljöklassning ska utföras på Eco House för att se hur ekologiskt det egentligen är och förbättringsåtgärder ur synpunkten att göra Eco House mer ekologiskt skall undersökas. Ekologiskt byggande är ett svårdefinierat begrepp som det finns flera tolkningar och synvinklar på. Den definition som passar bäst in på det sätt denna rapport förhåller sig till begreppet är att se till hela byggnadens livscykel där både extern och intern miljö bör beaktas. Examensarbete är utfört i samarbete med Willa Nordic AB som är ett småländskt småhusföretag, nischat mot arkitektritade hus som utformas efter kundens önskemål. Eco House är ett typhus, marknadsfört som ekologiskt, framtaget av Willa Nordic AB i samarbete med arkitekten Rahel Belatchew Lerdell. Svanenmärkning är en nordisk miljömärkning som bygger på att hjälpa konsumenter att hitta produkter med låg miljöbelastning och bra kvalitet. För att ett småhus ska få en Svanenmärkning ställs det krav på bland annat byggprocessen, ventilation och material. Eftersom alla entreprenörer för byggnationen av Eco House inte är upphandlade än kan inte alla krav för en Svanenmärkning uppfyllas. Dessutom återstår en del arbete för Willa Nordic AB att utföra. Miljöklassningssystemet är framtaget i hopp om att det ska knytas till incitament för diverse aktörer inom byggsektorn att bygga mer ekologiskt hållbart. Då Eco House klassas enligt miljöklassningssystemet betygssätts det i intervallet B till D beroende på olika utfall, vilket betyder att huset ligger någonstans mellan att vara något bättre än grundkravet till att vara sämre än grundkravet. Eco House är en byggnad som ser väldigt ekologisk ut, till och med namnet antyder detta, men ur byggekologiskt synsätt stämmer det inte helt. Vissa förändringar krävs för en svanenmärkning och ett bra miljöklassningsbetyg. / The building sector is held responsible for a large part of the energy and material use in Sweden today. In order to work towards a more sustainable building the “Bygga-bodialogen” started. One of the “Bygga-bo-dialogen” commitments has been to develop a rating system for buildings; Environmental classification of buildings. Other ways to illustrate the environmental impact of products are eco-labels such as “Svanenmärkning”. This report applies both methods on a house known as Eco House to highlight the differences and similarities between the systems. “Svanenmärkning” and “miljöklassning” will be carried out on Eco House to investigate how ecological it is, and possible improvements from the standpoint to make Eco House more ecological will be examined. Green building is hard to define since there are multiple interpretations and points of views. The definition that suites the manner of this report relates to the concept the best is to ensure the entire building's life cycle in which both external and internal environment should be considered. This thesis is made in cooperation with Willa Nordic AB, which is a house manufacturing company located in the south of Sweden, niche towards architectural designed houses to customers’ requests. Eco House is a type of building, marketing as organic, developed by Willa Nordic AB, in collaboration with the architect Rahel Belatchew Lerdell. “Svanenmärkning” is a Nordic eco-label based on helping consumers to find products with low environmental impact and good quality. To get this label on the house certain requirements are set on the construction process, ventilation and materials. Since the Eco House is not built yet, all the requirements have not been fulfilled. Some work for Willa Nordic AB to perform still remains. The classification system has been developed in the hope that it will be linked to an incentive for various actors in the construction industry to build more environmentally sustainable. When Eco House was classified according to the classification system it was graded in the range B to D, depending on various outcomes. The house is somewhere between being slightly better than the basic requirement and being slightly worse. Eco House is a building that looks very organic, even the name suggests, but from building ecological approach is not entirely true. Some changes are required for a “Svanenmärkning” and a good environmental classification rating.

No description available.

One of mankind’s most important needs is the need for shelter. All around the world people live in lack of this basic need. Colombia is a South American country heavily burdened by civil war for many years. This has led to that many people have moved to the larger cities with large slum areas and bad living conditions. This thesis is aiming to give a solution to the problem with bad housing and it is performed in cooperation with Ankarstiftelsen. Ankarstiftelsen is a Swedish charity organisation that works with the suffering people in various places in Colombia. This thesis examines the possibility to build a house in a sandwich technique with a core of rigid plastic foam and a skin material of fibre reinforced plastic. The construction should be as easy as possible to manufacture, and the construction is also intended to be self carrying. The final proposition is to build the house using polyurethane rigid foam as the core, and a glass fibre reinforced polyester as the skin. This combination combines good mechanical behaviour with a relatively low price. Tests have been performed to evaluate the constructions ability to withstand some basic loads, with the help of computer aided engineering. The program that has been used to create a model is ProEngineer, and the application ProMechanica has been used to perform the analysis. The loads that have been tested are: gravity loads, wind loads, maintenance loads and earthquake loads.  Colombia is located in the so called Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes are a bitter reality.  The Colombian building code is, as a result of this, much focused on the issue of earthquake safety. The Colombian building code has been used in order to create reliable earthquake testing models. The authors come to the conclusion that the house is possible to build with the given data. However, further investigations regarding manufacturing techniques and practical tests have to be made before the house can be built in reality.

Miljö och energianvändning blir ett mer aktuellt ämne. 40 % av landets totala energianvändning går idag till bostäder.[1] Om elpriserna stiger under den närmsta tiden kommer det med stor säkerhet leda till att människor blir mer kostnadsmedvetna och gärna hittar sätt för att minska sina energikostnader. Som ett led i detta har hustillverkare tagit fram ett energisnålt alternativ till det vanliga huset. Det benämns lågenergihus och använder mindre energi än de hus som är vanliga på marknaden idag. Det här är möjligt genom att lågenergihus byggs på ett annorlunda vis jämfört med ett ordinärt hus. Bland annat används mer isolering och bättre fönster och dörrar. Dessutom är täthet ett viktigt begrepp för att minska värmeförlusterna. Rapporten syftar till att redogöra för vad som karaktäriserar lågenergihus och ge vägledning vid byggande av dessa. Vidare ska rapporten ge svar på frågorna, vilka är problemen och vilka är fördelarna med lågenergihus? Hur ser byggprocessen ut och vad är viktigt att tänka på i de olika skedena i processen? samt, är det ekonomiskt rimligt att bygga lågenergihus? För att få svar på dessa frågor har jag använt mig av litteratur, intervjuer samt informationssökning på nätet, dessutom har jag använt mig av de kunskaper som införskaffats under studietiden. I rapporten har jag valt att endast behandla energianvändning då miljöfrågan är alltför omfattande. Vidare ger rapporten en introduktion till vad som är utmärkande för lågenergihus rent byggnadstekniskt och lotsar läsaren genom byggprocessens olika skeden samt vilka aktörer som är inblandade och vilka deras respektive ansvarsområden är. Dessutom pekar rapporten ut vad som är viktigt för dig som byggherre att tänka på under de olika skedena i byggprocessen i form av planering, utformning, konstruktion, installationer, utgifter, försäkringar, kontroller och avtal, vare sig du väljer att uppföra byggnaden i egen regi eller anlita en entreprenör. Rapporten ger exempel på lösningar gällande konstruktion, installationer och värmesystem som är lämpliga i ett lågenergihus. Dessutom görs en energiberäkning på ett lågenergihus ritat av författaren till rapporten. Beräkningen ger huset en energianvändning på 56 kWh/m2, år, vilket är ca hälften av vad lagar och föreskrifter anger som maximalt värde ett hus får ha. Idéer och tankar som legat till grund för huset beskrivs. Då detta hus ritats har även andra idéer implementerats som inte är specifika för lågenergihus, utan syftar till att huset ska ha en beredskap vid tillexempel elavbrott. I slutet av rapporten ges även tips på hur du som husägare ytterligare kan spara energi och bidra till en hållbar utveckling. [1]Gross, Holger (2008). Energismarta småhus: vägledning och råd till byggherrar, arkitekter och ingenjörer. Stockholm: Gross produktion i samarbete med Villaägarnas riksförbund / The environment and the use of energy is becoming a more present subject. Today the real estate industry accounts for more than 40% of Sweden’s total energy consumption.[1]As energy prices rise, energy-saving in buildings is becoming increasingly important to homeowners. As result of this, house manufacturers have created a new type of energy-saving house called low-energy house. This house has a different construction in comparison to an ordinary house. The theses aims to give guidance when building a low-energy house and answer the following questions, what are the problems and what are the benefits, which are the different phases of the building process, what issues are important to consider in these phases and is it economically realistic to build a low-energy house. To be able to answer these questions I have collected material from litterateur, interviews, and web searching. In addition I also have used the knowledge I have obtained during my period of studies. The thesis only concern the energy consumption as the environmental part of it is too substantial. In addition the thesis gives a presentation of the building process, who are involved and what are their field of responsibility. Furthermore it points out what you as a future owner of a house/building proprietor should be attentive to during the building process so that no mistakes are made that causes the end results not turning out as expected. Different laws, rules, contracts, norms and authorities that occurs in the building process,  are accounted for and explained in the thesis in such a way that is easy to grasp for those not familiar to the subject.   The report gives advice and example of solutions in terms of construction and installations e.g. heating distribution system that are appropriate in a low-energy house. The thesis includes a calculation of the energy use of a low-energy house, which shows that the house uses about 56 kWh/m2, year. In comparison, this is about half the maximum limit decided by the Swedish constitution BBR.    A suggestion for a low-energy house is displayed in the paper, it is the same housed used for the calculation of energy use. Ideas and thoughts regarding the house are described. This suggestion also implements a few ideas’ that perhaps contributes additionally to energy-savings and a sustainable environment.   [1] Gross, Holger (2008). Energismarta småhus: vägledning och råd till byggherrar, arkitekter och ingenjörer. Stockholm: Gross produktion i samarbete med Villaägarnas riksförbund