The current field of research concerning the impact of railroads in Sweden beside from the State main-line network is relatively narrow. Including cultural impact to the area narrows the results even further. The purpose of this study is to open the field even more into the local societies and to what extent the impact of the introduction of railroad might have had on smaller county villages. Sweden holds a unique position concerning “station towns” or “railways towns” in terms of railway policy and the industrial development in towns that were affected by the railway, as the affected towns continued development were based on a hybrid between direct democracy and adaptations of city-law policies. This study takes place in Kisa, a small town in southern Östergötland that during the beginning of the 20th century turned into a municipal community due to the building of Östra centralbanan (roughly translated Eastern central-line). The aim has been to apply and compare earlier results concerning station towns in general research with local research on the town of Kisa.The tools for investigating the impact of the railroad in Kisa include demographical, industrial and criminal development of the town. Local letters sent to the district moot, in Swedish termed as kommunalstämma, as well as an insight to the local newspaper are also presented in this study. The conclusions of this study approves in many forms to the results of earlier research, but also opens questions for further research regarding the interacting relationship between sociology, voluntary sector and cultural differences in the early industrial station towns.

In this thesis I explore aspects of the Buddha Gotama as a teacher. I begin by analyzing the nature of the Buddha's enlightenment and his state of mind as presented by various accounts. The chapter reconciles his decision to teach by means of Buddhist epistemology and gives an account of the difficulty of learning the Buddhadhamma. In chapter two I give three examples of the Buddha teaching individual students about the dhamma to show how he approaches each scenario differently depending on the needs of the student. Finally I give an account of William James' pragmatic method in an effort to show how the Buddha's teaching is pragmatic as a method for solving an existential crisis.

The aim of this research is to understand the socio-economic development of a metropolitan region in Sydney through an analysis of regional innovative activity. South West Sydney, a major growth region within Sydney, includes the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Liverpool, Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly. This region has absorbed 25% of Sydney’s population growth in the period from 1991-2001. Although South West Sydney has experienced rapid population growth, this has not been matched by associated employment growth. In some sectors such as business services employment growth has been minimal in the previous decade, this is particularly the case in Liverpool, the regional centre of South West Sydney. Population growth is estimated to continue at the current rate (in excess of 5% per annum) for at least the next fifteen years. In this environment, local government authorities in the region are seeking ways in which to develop the regional economy of South West Sydney and increase the amount of sustainable employment commensurably with current population and labour force increases. The role of innovative activity has a central place in economic development. This thesis uses a ‘systems of innovation’ (SI) approach to examine innovative activity in the South West Sydney region. SI understands innovation as a socially embedded process of transforming ideas and knowledge into novel products, processes and services through the processes of learning and searching. The approach recognises that innovative activity is determined by various actors (firms and institutions) and the interactivity between these actors and the cumulative base of knowledge in which they operate. The Regional Innovations Systems (RIS) framework develops from an acknowledgement that innovation is primarily a geographically bounded phenomenon. The RIS approach sees that specific local resources are important in determining and encouraging the innovative activities carried out by local firms and hence, the competitiveness of these areas. The RIS literature provides two fields of understanding of what constitutes a regional innovation system. The first takes the global examples of highly innovative regions such as Silicon Valley and Route 128 in the United States of America (Saxenian 1994), South West England (Cooke and Morgan 1998), Baden Wurttemberg in Germany (Cooke 2001; Braczyk, Cooke et al. 2004), Northern Italy (Piore and Sabel 1984) and in Australia, the North Ryde corridor (Searle and Pritchard 2005). These regions represent ‘ideal’ or ‘star’ RIS, with highly specialised and networked clusters of firms, many forms of supporting regional infrastructure, and high levels of interactivity. The second and emerging field understands RIS to be in existence in all regions and individual RIS are identified on a scale from weak to strong (Wiig and Wood 1995; Cooke and Morgan 1998; Cooke 2001). This second stream includes the analysis of regions seeking to encourage innovative activity by using the RIS approach to examine their local resources and connectedness. It seeks to determine how not only local resources but also their connectedness could be enhanced to increase firm competitiveness. The innovation systems represented in the ����ideal���� regions are largely a world away from what is available and what is necessary in the encouragement of RIS in most other regions. However, the conceptual framework for examining and interpreting RIS is derived from the analysis of these ‘ideal’ regions. This framework does not provide for measurement and effective interpretation of a range of activities that may be present in less exceptional regions. This research contributes to this endeavour by providing a method that allows for interpretation of a wider range of innovation activities through the analysis of knowledge intensive services activities (KISA). The focus on knowledge gathering, particularly through the KISA analysis, provides an examination of the relationship between innovation, learning and knowledge, much more so than more traditional measures of innovative activity e.g. patents and research and development (RandD) expenditure. KISA analysis is an emerging field of innovation research. KISA are closely linked to firm innovative activity (OECD 2006) and through an analysis of regional KISA usage, an understanding of innovation and knowledge activities within the region can be constructed. This analysis applies equally across various regions and provides an opportunity to guide regional economic development policy intervention at the local government level in South West Sydney. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation are common words used to describe an evolving community. General patterns are often linked to the meaning of the above words but can these patterns be applied to individual parishes on the agricultural countryside? The purpose of this study is to seek moving patterns and how they change during the 19th century in the parish of Västra Eneby, municipal of Kinda, Östergötland. The main thesis is that the study will show an increasing intensity of translocations over the parish border towards the end of the 19th century. The study is based on material from Västra Eneby’s church archives to establish statistical data beginning with 1809 and with a sample rate of 10 years, ending with 1909. The study consists of two main parts that links together in the results. Firstly all the marriages that took place are registered, with names and place of living etc. Then all the general movements across the parish border are registered and cross referenced with the marriages to search for matching entries. This gives a general idea of the moving patterns during the 19th century, both general and those in combination with the marriage. The results show an increasing amount of movements over the parish border closer to the 20th century. However there is no clear difference between sexes that follow through the whole duration of the time of the study. The movements linked to the marriages also increased in the end of the years in the study. Here a much larger share of women than men moved, although this share decreases towards the end of the time of the study. The study shows that earlier research from other parts of the country and world can be applied to the parish of Västra Eneby, although the differences between sexes are not that significant as other studies have shown.

Den kommunala sektorn har historiskt sett varit en outvecklad sektor som saknat tydliga riktlinjer för räkenskapsrevisionen. År 2023 implementerades standard för kommunal räkenskapsrevision, som benämns KISA, vilket medförde förändring och utmaningar. I standarden konstateras att ISA 600 inte är tillämplig och därmed inte används i kommunal revision. Revisionen av kommuner är av stor betydelse för flera intressenter såsom politiska beslutsfattare och medborgare, då den fyller en viktig funktion genom att granska kommuners räkenskaper och säkerställa att de ger en rättvisande bild. Syftet med forskningen är att få en djupare förståelse för kommunal räkenskapsrevision, samt revisionsstandarderna KISA och ISA 600. Det undersöks även om revisorer instämmer med bestämmelsen i KISA att ISA 600 inte är tillämplig i kommunal revision och vilka argument som ligger till grund för deras åsikt. Det finns ingen tidigare forskning som direkt behandlar dessa ämnen, därför används kvalitativ metod och data samlas in genom intervjuer med revisorer som har kompetens inom kommunal revision, i syfte att få en djupare förståelse för deras insikter och åsikter. I empiriavsnittet presenteras respondenterna åsikter i de olika frågorna, både gällande påverkan av KISA samt ISA 600s tillämpbarhet. Den teoretiska referensramen, som bland annat inkluderar informationsasymmetri och agentteori, kopplas till empirin i analysdelen av arbetet. I många frågor har respondenterna haft olika uppfattningar och åsikter, vilket har begränsat möjligheten till att dra slutsatser i någon given riktning. Något som kan konstateras baserat på respondenternas samlade åsikt är att KISA har bidragit med flera positiva egenskaper för den kommunala revisionen. I vilken utsträckning ISA 600s utelämnande i KISA har påverkat revisionen skiljer sig åsikterna mellan respondenterna. Men slutsatsen kan dras att ISA 600 kan bidra med flera positiva faktorer till revisionen. Gällande möjligheten att tillämpa ISA 600 bidrar respondenterna med olika åsikter. Flera menar på att det skulle krävas förändring i lagar och regler för att möjliggöra ISA 600 inom kommunal revision.

Mitt projekt bemöter ett småstadstorg där flera av förutsättningarna byggts bort eller med tiden inte underhållits, och där platsen och de gamla butikerna samtidigt har svårt att hitta en ny roll i ett allt mer urbaniserat land. Torgets kvaliteter finns i olika skalor och dimensioner, därför har jag valt att hantera projektet på tre nivåer: stad, torg och byggnad. Platsen är det sk. Skvallertorget i Kisa, Östergötland, med omgivande befintliga hus och butiker från tiden 1890-1910, varav många idag är delvis stängda eller med eftersatt underhåll. Utgångspunkten är att återuppväcka den gamla torg-platsen och byggnaderna som ramar in det. Projektet handlar om att genom hänsynsfulla förändringar och tillägg kunna väcka de kvaliteter som glömts bort, och skapa nya i samma spår genom restaurering och referenser i den egna staden. Jag vill också med detta projekt väcka frågor kring omsorg, kvalitet och identitet och hur detta finns med i vår hantering av befintliga och nya byggnader. / My project deals with a small town square where many of the qualities and requirements have been deconstructed or not maintained over time, and where the square and the old stores have trouble finding its place in an increasingly urbanized country. The qualities of a town square are found in different scales and dimensions, and I have therefore decided to approach the project on three levels: town, square and building. The site is the so called Skvallertorget in Kisa, Östergötland, with its surrounding existing houses and stores from the time 1890-1910, out of which many are now partly closed and neglected. To revitalize the old town square and the buildings surrounding it was my starting point, and the project is about awakening the forgotten qualities with careful alterations and additions, and to create new in the same style through restoration and references in the town. With this project I also want to ask questions about care, quality and identity and how this is part of our way of dealing with existing and new environments and buildings.