The interrelated challenges of systematic degradation of ecosystems, social inequalities, financial instability and resource constraints are redefining the overall conditions for business in the twenty-first century. Addressing these challenges both demands and brings great opportunity for innovation. An important but sometimes neglected aspect of innovation is the design or redesign of business models. This has been identified as a greater source of lasting competitive advantage than new products and services per se. The majority of managers among those who say that their company´s sustainability activities have added to profits also say that these activities have led to business model changes. However, integrating business model design and sustainable innovation practices is a relatively underexplored area of research. The aim of this work is to develop an approach to business model design that supports the realization of sustainability-driven strategies. In this thesis, it is argued that a major barrier to sustainable innovation is the usual unawareness of an operational definition of sustainability and of guidelines for how an organization can support sustainable development while strengthening its own competitiveness. Therefore, a Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), which includes such an operational definition of sustainability and such strategic guidelines, is used as an overarching methodology for this work. Specific research methods include literature reviews, data collection, data and document analysis, explorative workshops and action research, mainly with partners in the district heating sector. To be able to design a business model that supports a sustainability-driven strategy, it is necessary to have, or to be able to develop, such a strategy. The literature review revealed that there is currently no business model design tool that in itself includes support for developing sustainability-driven strategies. However, as regards business model design as such, a tool known as the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is frequently referenced and by many seen as a kind of de-facto standard support tool for business model design. A combination of the FSSD (bringing the sustainability perspective) and the BMC (bringing the generic building blocks of business models) is therefore explored. Depending on the context it is necessary to also combine this with other methods and tools; in this work specifically with methods and tools for energy systems modeling and simulation. Both as a way to develop a combined approach and as a way to start validating it, a prototype of a handbook for sustainable innovation in the district heating sector was developed and tested iteratively. The use of early versions of this handbook preliminary indicates that the combined approach helps organizations to, e.g., self-assess their maturity in terms of strategic sustainability work, clarify strengths and weaknesses of current business models from a strategic sustainability perspective and generate of new solutions, including mutually supportive actions and business models within their wider value network.

Background. The current narrative of IPV places heavy emphasis on physical violence. Some scholars have criticized this claiming that most abuse is not violent, rather it is characterized by coercive control tactics, such as isolation and intimidation. Aim. The purpose of this study is to examine how domestic abuse is defined in the Swedish courts regarding Gross Violation of a Woman’s Integrity. Do the courts recognize coercive control, or is the focus mainly on violence? Results. By conducting a content analysis on verdicts from the two highest courts in Sweden, this study concludes that although less serious indications of abuse are recognized to some extent, the courts tend to focus on physical violence and bodily injury. This paper questions the usefulness of this definition by criticizing it from a feminist perspective. In the long-term, this does nothing for victims of IPV. A shift in narrative is needed to identify unseen victims of abuse.

The value of conducting research around STEAM education (the amalgamation of the arts with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) rests in better understanding current practices and the challenges teachers face when creating, implementing, evaluating, and revising a STEAM curriculum. This ethnographic case study examines how teachers, across different disciplinary content areas, make, utilize, implement, and evaluate STEAM curricula for students to become critical thinkers and create authentic work products. The data consisted of semi-structured interviews, two focus groups, and several observations of four teachers in their planning and implementing STEAM curricula. In the first phase of the study, the researcher mostly observed the process of the participants. At the end of this phase all the participants came together in a focus group to discuss and share their process. In the second phase, the researcher examined how the participants would modify their processes based on their discussions with their colleagues. In addition, the researcher helped guide the teachers in applying these modifications to the STEAM process. The result of these sessions showed how the changes in teachers’ processes in creating, implementing, evaluating, and revising STEAM curricula created more opportunities for students to be critical and creative scholars. The findings from this study may help to inform researchers and educators on best practices to devise, execute, and evaluate STEAM lessons that have the potential to significantly impact students in their academic studies, careers, and futures.

Introduction: The placenta is a complex, disk-shaped organ vital to a successful pregnancy and responsible for materno-fetal exchange of vital gases and biochemicals. Instances of compromised placental development or function – collectively termed placenta dysfunction - underlies the most common and devastating pregnancy complications observed in North America, including preeclampsia (PE) and fetal growth restriction (FGR). A comprehensive histopathology examination of the placenta following delivery can help clarify obstetrical disease etiology and progression and offers tremendous potential in the identification of patients at risk of recurrence in subsequent pregnancies, as well as patients at high risk of chronic diseases in later life. However, these types of examinations require a high degree of specialized training and are resource intensive, limiting their availability to tertiary care centers in large city centres. The development of machine learning algorithms tailored to placenta histopathology applications may allow for automation and/or standardization of this important clinical exam – expanding its appropriate usage and impact on the health of mothers and infants. The primary objective of the current project is to develop and pilot the use of machine learning models capable of placental disease classification using digital histopathology images of the placenta. Methods: 1) A systematic review was conducted to identify the current methods being applied to automate histopathology screening to inform experimental design for later components of the project. Of 230 peer-reviewed articles retrieved in the search, 18 articles met all inclusion criteria and were used to develop guidelines for best practices. 2) To facilitate machine learning model development on placenta histopathology samples, a villi segmentation algorithm was developed to aid with feature extraction by providing objective metrics to automatically quantify microscopic placenta images. The segmentation algorithm applied colour clustering and a tophat transform to delineate the boundaries between neighbouring villi. 3) As a proof-of-concept, 2 machine learning algorithms were tested to evaluated their ability to predict the clinical outcome of preeclampsia (PE) using placental histopathology specimens collected through the Research Centre for Women’s and Infant’s Health (RCWIH) BioBank. The sample set included digital images from 50 cases of early onset PE, 29 cases of late onset PE and 69 controls with matching gestational ages. All images were pre-processed using patch extraction, colour normalization, and image transformations. Features of interest were extracted using: a) villi segmentation algorithm; b) SIFT keypoint descriptors (textural features); c) integrated feature extraction (in the context of deep learning model development). Using the different methods of feature extraction, two different machine learning approaches were compared - Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN, deep learning). To track model improvement during training, cross validation on 20% of the total dataset was used (deep learning algorithm only) and the trained algorithms were evaluated on a test dataset (20% of the original dataset previously unseen by the model). Results: From the systematic review, 5 key steps were found to be essential for machine learning model development on histopathology images (image acquisition and preparation, image preprocessing, feature extraction, pattern recognition and classification model training, and model testing) and recommendations were provided for the optimal methods for each of the 5 steps. The segmentation algorithm was able to correctly identify individual villi with an F1 score of 80.76% - a significantly better performance than recently published methods. A maximum accuracy of 73% for the machine learning experiments was obtained when using textural features (SIFT keypoint descriptors) in an SVM model, using onset of PE disease (early vs. late) as the output classification of interest. Conclusion: Three major outcomes came of this project: 1) the range of methods available to develop automated screening tools for histopathology images with machine learning were consolidated and a set of best practices were proposed to guide future projects, 2) a villi segmentation tool was developed that can automatically segment all individual villi from an image and extract biologically relevant features that can be used in machine learning model development, and 3) a prototype machine learning classification tool for placenta histopathology was developed that was able to achieve moderate classification accuracy when distinguishing cases of early onset PE and late onset PE cases from controls. The collective body of work has made significant contributions to the fields of placenta pathology and computer vision, laying the foundation for significant progress aimed at integrating machine learning tools into the clinical setting of perinatal pathology.

This work seeks to explore the relationship between two arts: music and painting. The aim of this thesis is the creation and execution of an interdisciplinary performance in which music and painting dialogue live, "Painting music", to investigate how both arts relate and influence each other when they are part of a single artistic act and how performers and audience perceive this relationship. To do so, we will investigate interdisciplinary performances, synesthesia (union of perceptions) and the different ways in which painting and music can relate to each other.

This study is a poststructural policy analysis of the Swedish governmental writing called Politics for Global Development in the Implementation of Agenda 2030. The writing is the most recent Swedish development policy and is built upon agenda 2030. The method that is used in this thesis is described by Carol Bacchi and called WPR. It is used to identify problem representations in policies and the discourses that are used in the formulation of problems. The findings of the study shows that the liberal discourses apparent within Agenda 2030 are evident in the Swedish development policy along with liberal feminism which is dominant in contemporary Swedish foreign policy. Findings of other poststructural studies highlight discourses of modernity and orientalism within the dominant development paradigm, which are shown to inform Swedish development policy as well.

For centuries, in the river-less landscape of Bangalore water supply was ensured by harvesting monsoon rains in a series of hydrologically connected man-made lakes. Traditionally, these lakes were constructed and maintained by surrounding agricultural communities who acted as local stewards. However, in the last sixty years, due to rapid urbanization, the disappearance of agricultural activities and the centralization of lake governance, an estimated eight hundred of Bangalore’s lakes have been converted to other land uses and many of those that remain are highly polluted. In reaction to this, citizens concerned about environmental degradation have pushed for permission to engage in lake management. As a result, the governance of certain lakes now includes both government actors and lake groups made up of local residents working to maintain and protect their neighbourhood lakes. This thesis presents five lake groups that have successfully helped revive their local lakes and uses semi-structured interviews and sense of place surveys to illustrate the links between prolonged engagement in stewardship, ecosystem changes, shifting perceptions of place meanings and growth in place attachment. By using insights from place-making research the study also examines the groups’ contribution to the quality of their local lakes as inclusive public spaces, which in a city of stark socioeconomic contrasts are required to service both the provisioning needs of the urban poor as well as the recreational uses of a growing middle-class. Findings suggest that regular engagement in placebased stewardship can cultivate a social-ecological approach to ecosystem governance over time by allowing stewards build local ecological knowledge and engage with the varied needs and interests of their communities.

Society is facing major challenges with an ongoing mass extinction of more than one million species worldwide caused by the destruction of ecological systems, deforestation, habitat loss, the increase of invasive species, climate change, illegal wildlife tracking, poaching and poverty. Challenges in which zoos worldwide contribute with important educational programs, innovative research and conservation strategies to ease the negative impact on local communities within developing countries. This essay considers that zoos through policies of in-situ conservation do play an important role within the wider context of development aid and sustainable development. However, Kolmården does not seem to understand that their policies have a significant impact on local communities within developing countries, especially since Kolmården execute scarce controls of aid management. Research has been conducted through semi-structured interviews at Kolmården, interviewees consist of zoo pedagogies and animal caretakers. This research displays the importance of zoos and its strategies, it also tries to explain the problem Kolmården stands for by lacking an overall organization that supports zoos within the political sphere. The lack of political support, ignorance, and misconceptions harms Kolmården and the zoo community. As a result, one may argue, that Kolmården among other zoos to be stuck within the dilemma “tragedy of the commons” presented by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in (1968). However, zoos are grossly underutilized institutions with great potential to conduct global sustainable development and safeguard wildlife from becoming extinct through development aid and in-situ conservation, which is supported by Kolmården Foundation through financial donations, innovative research, educati

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) is integral within the international sustainable development agenda both as goal and objective. As well as linking people and society to the broader picture of development, sustainable consumption helps the global sustainability agenda to connect with individuals because it affects everyday practices at home and in society. Sustainable production is strongly linked to consumption as it touches on the practices of producing consumer goods and services. International development cooperation agencies are important actors in the SCP agenda, as they oversee international aid and funding for programmes meant to implement international sustainable development policies. SCP has strong links to global north narratives, and participatory approaches have become mandatory for recipient countries to obtain donor funding. It is therefore important to understand how these agencies conceptualise these practices in a global south context. Drawing from the ideas of empowerment through participation, this degree project analyses two project reports funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), an important actor within international development cooperation activities, and investigates how SCP is communicated in a global south context. It finds that: the initiatives experience limitations by donor dependency, constraining local community practices to sustain; lacking measuring tools and strategies limit the information to clearly say these initiatives reach the intended target groups; and that there is strong reason to question whether these initiatives, largely built upon global north narratives, are suitable for the context and subjects of intervention.

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