On 1 January 2007 abolished Sweden as one of the last countries in EU the wealth tax. This wealth tax was in Sweden for almost 100 years. As the great debate in the context of tax reform in 1910 was not so much about the introduction of a wealth tax. The discussion was instead on the wealth tax would be proportional or progressive together with the income tax. When the government with and there finance minister, Carl Swartz, presented its government bill, 1910:88, 11 March 1910, the draft regulation on income and wealth tax was said, that now they had finally made a shift in the direct tax to the state. A change had been sought and it would have been great difficulties to be overcome and it would have been deeply entrenched ideas about this tax reform impossible. Despite all the protests from the wealthy in society, so continue this conservative government through reform with the strong support of many conservative politicians who had most to lose from this tax reform. The government also succeeded in compromising with liberals and social democrats that supported the reform. Heavy respondents in Sweden in 1910, as Kammarrätten and Bevillningsutskottet supported almost without any comment the proposal. Thus, Sweden had been given a modern tax system that applies even today more than 100 years later Introduction of the combined income and wealth tax was in continuation a great tax pump in Sweden when the governments needed to find funding for their reforms.

Lossless image compression has many applications, for example, in medical imaging, space photograph and film industry. In this thesis, we propose an efficient lossless image compression scheme for both binary images and gray-scale images. The scheme first decomposes images into a set of progressively refined binary sequences and then uses the context-based, adaptive arithmetic coding algorithm to encode these sequences. In order to deal with the context dilution problem in arithmetic coding, we propose a Lloyd-like iterative algorithm to quantize contexts. Fixing the set of input contexts and the number of quantized contexts, our context quantization algorithm iteratively finds the optimum context mapping in the sense of minimizing the compression rate. Experimental results show that by combining image decomposition and context quantization, our scheme can achieve competitive lossless compression performance compared to the JBIG algorithm for binary images, and the CALIC algorithm for gray-scale images. In contrast to CALIC, our scheme provides the additional feature of allowing progressive transmission of gray-scale images, which is very appealing in applications such as web browsing.

ABSTRACT A key feature of Canada’s urban system is the uneven distribution of population and economic growth. The 2011 Census showed that in the past five years more than 80% of the country’s growth was concentrated in the 10 largest Canadian Metropolitan Areas. As a result, more than 33% of Canada’s population centres lost population while another 27% experienced slow growth. Despite affecting a third of the country’s communities, population loss was concentrated primarily in remote communities with a population of less than 10,000. To better understand the processes and effects of slow growth and shrinkage in Canada this research was guided by three questions: • How do planners, economic developers and local officials define slow growth, decline and shrinkage? • What factors cause a community to implement growth appropriate planning tools and strategies and; • What components should be part of growth appropriate planning and economic development strategies? These questions were addressed using a qualitative survey which was answered by 70 participants in 51 communities. Overall there was little variance in how respondents defined decline and shrinkage. Given their stigma, each term was primarily associated with population loss, vacant structures and a variety of problems including financial stress and the loss of employment opportunities. When asked approximately 80% of Canadian communities used at least one progressive planning tool or strategy. The implementation of these tools was largely in response to the effects of slow growth and shrinkage as well as future economic outlook, support from local actors (municipal staff and officials, residents, local businesses) and senior governments. Few communities however used these tools to acknowledge or explicitly deal with their slow growth or shrinkage as it was feared that accepting either trend would scare away future investment. Almost all of the research participants agreed that areas of slow growth and population loss required different planning strategies than those experiencing rapid growth. These strategies included altering existing strategies to meet local needs and or creating entirely new planning tools and strategies, collaborating with other professionals, amending existing or creating new roles for planners, leverage local resources for community improvements and using an approach which equally addresses a community physical, economic, environmental and social needs. In addition, respondents noted that more research was required on how to plan in growth challenged areas and in particular, small rural communities.

The purpose of this study was to find out how well Swedish pupils succeeded in their use of the progressive verb forms. A comprehensive research has been carried out in the area of second language acquisition, in which an interest in the order of acquisition of a second language as well as verb forms also was included. The material for the study was collected from second year pupils at an upper secondary school and consisted of two consecutive writing assignments. The first assignment was preceded by the teaching of the progressive verb forms, which the pupils were implicitly expected to use in their writing. In the second assignment, no grammar lessons were given prior to the assignment. A comparison of the evolution of the use of the verb forms mentioned was then conducted. The result indicates an increase of an accurate use. One conclusion that can be drawn is that learner strategies and motivation are beneficial to second language acquisition, as well as learning a more accurate grammar.

Outdoor education constitutes an alternative teaching approach that is characterized by authentic experiences and activities in outdoor natural and cultural landscapes. As a relatively new and progressive teaching method, it tries to find and consolidate its place within the existing educational system. The current thesis explores Greek academic teachers’ perceptions and experiences in the field of outdoor education. More specifically, eight academic teachers from a Greek university express their views about outdoor education and report their experiences in outdoor lessons. Through a qualitative approach, this research includes analysis of data extracted from semi-structured interviews with the academics. From the thematic analysis of the data four themes emerged that illustrate teachers’ opinions. The results of the research revealed academic teachers’ basic knowledge on the field of outdoor education, as they presented some well-aimed examples of main characteristics of the approach. Moreover, they reported limited previous outdoor experiences with their students and perceive outdoor lessons as any action outside the typical classroom, attributing higher importance to outdoor activities performed in cultural rather than natural landscapes. Also, academics acknowledged several benefits that outdoor education provides to their students such as the stimulation of all their senses, the connection of theory with practice and the promotion of social relations. In addition, they attributed significant importance to both the experiential approach to learning and to the connection with nature that outdoor lessons provide. Nevertheless, academic teachers highlighted many barriers that inhibit their efforts to apply outdoor lessons such as lack of time and appropriate places, inadequate infrastructure, human resources as well as insufficient pedagogical training and preparation. Concluding, what seems to trouble academics most is the prevailing educational culture inside schools and universities as well as teachers’ and academic teachers’ attitudes. The above findings contribute to the current limited scientific knowledge concerning the practice of outdoor education in the higher level of education. Last but not least, further qualitative research is a prerequisite in order to study the origin of the perceptions and attitudes of Greek academics and comprehend the socio-cultural and educational context in which these have been formed.

The purpose of this essay is to examine at how to portray characters in the stories and narratives which depicts one of these children's books and if they really have something to ethnicity and its identification to be done. The Research questions is: What are the different identification markers given, to the reading child in the books, which might indicate that the story depicts people of different ethnicities? How are the characters portrayed in the story and which role is assigned to the main character? What story is portrayed and is it relevant to an identifier can occur? The conclusions of the five children's books shows that it is important with identifications markers, to show that there are different ethnicities. For example the analysis revealed the specific features of the illustrations and how the books portrayes someone with a different ethnicity and cultural background as something exotic. In the texts, the analysis showed how it occurred ethnic differences, by explicitly demonstrating differences between the characters. It was found that the characters were produced mostly as good, happy, curious, suspicious and unsympathetic. Common to all the main characters was that they had been placed, in one for them unusual context and that they were trying to assimilate to the new situations. Depictions consisted of realism and fiction. What emerged here was that most of the stories themselves were not carrying identification purposes, most of the stories needed help with the identification markers from the illustrations, so that the reading child could understand the themes it was about. The methods used in the studies are narratology, semiotics and critical discourse analysis. In particular, I looked at the propositions, inferences, icon, index and symbol.

<p>A fire in Salem, Mass., in 1914 and an explosion in Halifax, N.S., in 1917 provide an opportunity to explore working-class institutions and organizations in the United States-Canada borderlands. In a historical moment in which the state greatly expanded its responsibility to give protection and rescue to its citizens, after these two disasters ordinary survivors preferred to depend on their friends, neighbors, and family members. This dissertation examines which institutions--including formal organizations like unions and fraternal societies as well as informal groups like families and neighborhoods--were most relevant and useful to working-class survivors. Families, neighbors, friends, and coworkers had patterns and traditions of self-help, informal order, and solidarity that they developed before crisis hit their cities. Those traditions were put to unusual purposes and extreme stress when the disasters happened. They were also challenged by new agents of the state, who were given extraordinary powers in the wake of the disasters. This dissertation describes how the working-class people who most directly experienced the disasters understood them and their cities starkly differently than the professionalized relief authorities.</p><p>Using a wide array of sources--including government documents, published accounts, archived ephemeral, oral histories, photographs, newspapers in two languages, and the case files of the Halifax Relief Commission--the dissertation describes how elites imposed a progressive state on what they imagined to be a fractured and chaotic social landscape. It argues that "the people" for whom reformers claimed to speak had their own durable, alternative modes of support and rescue that they quickly and effectively mobilized in times of crisis, but which remained illegible to elites. By demonstrating the personal, ideological, political, and practical ties between New England and Nova Scotia and Quebec, it also emphasizes the importance of studying American and Canadian history together, not only comparatively but as a transnational, North American whole.</p> / Dissertation

Democratic politics is a process where political elites compete for votes (Schumpeter, 1950) and therefore campaign communication is an indispensable area in it. In the beginning, campaign communication focused more on public policy promotion (Peng, 2005) and now is campaign-communication oriented to define communication strategies adopted in election campaign. Election campaign becomes fiercer after party politics takes root in Taiwan and that is where campaign advertising comes in. Purposes of campaign advertising by a candidate or party include image shaping, promotion of campaign issue and statement of political platform and achievements. We examined campaign literature of Democratic Progressive Party in 2010 Kaohsiung Mayoral Election and adopted Cognitive Continuum Theory (CCT) to analyze how appeal of campaign advertising influenced voter. Quasi-experiment was adopted. 45 questionnaires were issued to 45 participants individually due to the nature of the questionnaire. Results indicate that voters in Kaohsiung are more intuitive and support a candidate more because of the candidate¡¦s image than his/her platform. Reflect Kaohsiung voters' cognitive characteristics to be more intuitive. These cognitive characteristics show not only economic but serious social issues in Kaohsiung.

This thesis explores the Americanization efforts of educational leaders in Texas during the Progressive Era to demonstrate that reformers did not use vocational education, and specifically home economics, primarily to Americanize immigrant and ethnic minority students to become good, working-poor citizens. Through Americanization efforts in vocational curricula, reformers hoped to provide economically disadvantaged students with a practical body of knowledge and democratic values that would create healthy, economically viable communities occupied by loyal, educated American citizens. Federal legislation that promoted the development of vocational education in the first half of the twentieth century demonstrates that this way of thinking reflected national rather than regional trends. In Texas, vocational education was largely directed at a population that was predominately white and rural for the first several decades of the twentieth century. That decision by educators casts considerable doubt on assertions that they were primarily motivated by racialized thinking. Notably, home economics curricula was constructed over the framework of Americanization, and children who took such courses in rural schools received training that advocated respect for others, cooperation, an appreciation of Western culture and the value of aesthetics, efficiency and thriftiness, and good hygiene practices. The homemaking program at the South San Antonio high school in the 1944-1945 school year provides an example. Homemaking teacher Nell Kruger's curriculum reached far beyond training future housewives, waitresses and maids. She sought, in accordance with the state-mandated home economics curriculum, to provide a practical body of knowledge and to inculcate democratic values in her students. Using Texas' State Department of Education and State Board of Vocational Education bulletins, Texas Education Agency literature, federal and state laws, conference reports, and curriculum guidelines, this thesis seeks to further nuance the understanding of Americanization efforts through vocational education, specifically homemaking, during the Progressive Era in Texas by arguing that Americanization reflected an urban, middle-class perspective directed toward economically disadvantaged white students as well as immigrant and ethnic minority students.

Since the mode of level-of-analysis has to be treated as an empirical tool for IR theories to make a claim to become a social science in its own right, this study attempts to explore the political process of a mutual construction of the international system and the nation states within the model in three parts. Firstly, this study examines how the international system and the national states be settled upon as pregiven scientific entities on the basis of objective spatiality of territory and borders. Secondly, this study shows that in order to merge all states¡¦ diversities and differences into the sameness and likeness, the mutual construction is linked to the plausible assumptions about the structural world of universal rationality among all states, and the unfolding history of linear and progressive evolution. Finally, this study takes the September 11 and the war on terrorism as an example to illustrate the mutual construction and its consequences.