In recent decades, the night lights data of the Earth’s surface derived from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) have been used to detect the human settlements and human activities, because the DMSP/OLS data is able to supply the information about the urban areas  and non-urban areas on the Earth which means it is more suitable for urban studies than usual satellite imagery data.   The urban development is closed linked to the human society development. Therefore, studies of urban development will help people to understand how the urban changed and predict the urban change. The aim of this study was to detect Beijing’s urban development from 1992 to 2012, and find the contributions to the urban sprawl from socio-economic factors. Based on this objective, the main dataset used in this thesis was night lights images derived from the DMSP/OLS which was detected from  1992 to 2012. Due to the lacking of on-board calibration on OLS, and the over-glow of the lights resources, the information about the night lights cannot be extracted directly. Before any process, the night lights images should be calibrated. There is a method to calibrate the night light images which is called intercalibration. It is a second order regression model based method to find the related digital number values. Therefore, intercalibration was employed, and the threshold values were determined to extract urban areas in this study. Threshold value is useful for diffusing the over-glow effect, and finding the urban areas from the DMSP/OLS data. The methods to determine the threshold value in this thesis are empirical threshold method, sudden jump detection method, statistic data comparison method and k-mean clustering method. In addition, 13 socio-economic factors which included gross domestic product, urban population, permanent population, total energy consumption and so on were used to build the regression model. The contributions from these factors to the sum of the Beijing’s lights were found based on modeling.   The results of this thesis are positive. The intercalibration was successful and all the DMSP/OLS data used in this study were calibrated. And then, the appropriate threshold values to extract the urban areas were figured out. The achieved urban areas were compared to the satellite images and the result showed that the urban areas were useful. During the time certain factors used in this study, such as mobile phone users, possession of civil vehicles, GDP, three positively highest contributed to urban development were close to 23%, 8% and 9%, respectively.

Title: Motivating factors influencing consumers’ Brand preferences for mobile phones: University of Gavle students Level: Final assignment for Master degree in Business Administration (MBA) Authors: Chinedu Ekemba and Emurla Emin Ali Supervisor: Professor Ehsanul Huda Chowdhury Examiner: Professor Maria Fregidou-Malama Date: 2017- June Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the motivating factors that influence University Gavle students to prefer a particular Mobile phone brand. Method: A qualitative study is carried out based on primary data; the primary data was collected through semi-structured interview with twenty of University of Gavle Students by the use of face to face interview. Result & Conclusion: The study finds out that, the role of word of mouth as extrinsic factors serves as the highest motivating factor, while prestige serves as intrinsic factors of motivation. Thus, word of mouth and quality are the highest motivating factors that influence University of Gavle students to prefer a particular mobile phone brand. This finding of this research will help mobile phone marketers and managers to develop strategy on how to capture Swedish consumers to prefer their companies brand products. Suggestion for future research: Future research could be done by considering different or more widely target groups instead of students of University of Gavle. Different perspectives can be combined in future research thus, further research can be conducted by more broadly with a variety of age groups and in a wider area. Also, further research could include comparison between mobile phone brand types and may consider different type of products. This will give understanding of the different segments in mobile phone market, and to determine if these different segments can cause any variety and change of motivating factors. Additionally, further research could be conducted in the long time period, thus can be explored in detail benefiting from the longitudinal study and could be include observations to understand long-term variables on mobile phone market and effects of motivating factors. Hence, this could bring more effective conceptualization of influencing factors of smartphone buying consumers and helps to achieve a more in-depth research. More so, the same study can be conducted with a combination of different Universities in Sweden. And also, same research can be carried out using quantitative research method for future research. Contribution of the Study: This study contributes with knowledge on which motivating factors influence customers brand preferences, and how these factors affect their purchase decision.

Too often, literature on participation in community development is void of the rationale for the participation of teachers; the roles they may play; factors for and against their participation; and strategies for inviting and sustaining their participation. This study examines what could be done to ensure the participation of rural based teachers in community development activities, by exploring these issues. A qualitative design and purposeful sampling are used. The sample consists of information-rich informants from the following five categories: officials of the Rural District Council, non-governmental organisation workers, rural based school teachers, Village Development Committee Chairpersons, and ordinary community members. Interviewing is used as the major instrument of data collection. The study reveals that rural based teachers should participate in community development activities, since they have a wide knowledge base and transferable skills, and they are part of and trusted by the community. It reveals that rural based teachers' participation is deterred by political factors, lack of supportive policies, attitudes, conservativeness, lack of specialized training, and labour issues. Twenty two roles are identified for rural based teachers in community development activities. Strategies for inviting them to participate are: the use of policy, change of attitudes, use of media campaigns, training, and inclusion of community development in tertiary education in general, and teacher education in particular. Strategies for sustaining their participation emerge as: the use of incentives, free time or days off and holding responsible offices. Sixteen recommendations are finally presented. / DEVELOPMENT STUDIES / MA (DEVELOPMENT STUD)

Too often, literature on participation in community development is void of the rationale for the participation of teachers; the roles they may play; factors for and against their participation; and strategies for inviting and sustaining their participation. This study examines what could be done to ensure the participation of rural based teachers in community development activities, by exploring these issues. A qualitative design and purposeful sampling are used. The sample consists of information-rich informants from the following five categories: officials of the Rural District Council, non-governmental organisation workers, rural based school teachers, Village Development Committee Chairpersons, and ordinary community members. Interviewing is used as the major instrument of data collection. The study reveals that rural based teachers should participate in community development activities, since they have a wide knowledge base and transferable skills, and they are part of and trusted by the community. It reveals that rural based teachers' participation is deterred by political factors, lack of supportive policies, attitudes, conservativeness, lack of specialized training, and labour issues. Twenty two roles are identified for rural based teachers in community development activities. Strategies for inviting them to participate are: the use of policy, change of attitudes, use of media campaigns, training, and inclusion of community development in tertiary education in general, and teacher education in particular. Strategies for sustaining their participation emerge as: the use of incentives, free time or days off and holding responsible offices. Sixteen recommendations are finally presented. / DEVELOPMENT STUDIES / MA (DEVELOPMENT STUD)