Multiple-use forestry has gained increasing emphasis in forestry discourse in recent years. This article examines how multiple-use forestry has been perceived among Swedish forest actors. Halsey’s interpretation on ‘modalities of nature’ is used to address the tension and relations among various actors and the unfolding processes of becoming. Drawn on semi-structured interviews, we suggest seeing multiple-use forestry as a site for ideas and ideologies to collide, confluence and collaborate. We draw attention to interview materials that address the ‘modalities of nature’ where vision, naming, speed and affect all contribute to the becoming of multiple-use forestry. We thus show how multiple-use forestry has been used as a political concept and address the potentially creative and constructive relations generated by the forest users.

This article aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how tourism in Sápmi is positioned in the broader discourses that contribute to the construction of Sámi identities. This is done through examining how the tourism industry is represented in the ethno-political discourses in newspaper media. Employing a discourse analysis framework, we collected 165 articles from 29 major Swedish newspapers for the period 1982–2015. The results show that the ethno-political discourses construct, and are constructed by, the discursive practice of tourism in Sápmi, thus forming an ongoing dialectical process. This process entails three aspects. First, while some narratives in newspapers construct a social knowledge that portrays the Sámi people as “exotic others” in the global and domestic tourism industry, others show that tourism can also be an opportunity to challenge such a view. Second, these news narratives demonstrate how the ethno-political discourses are intertwined in the social relations between tourism and other natural-resource-based industries. Third, an ever-changing social identity construction shows that, with the changing role of reindeer herding in the Sámi identity, how tourism assists or challenges this association is becoming increasingly important.

“Chineseness” may be linked to the Chinese garden and ancient Chinese poetry. This article presents a study set in a Chinese garden in Dunedin, New Zealand. This scholar’s garden ismarketed as being authentic in that it was designed in China, constructed using traditional materials imported from China, and built according to traditional principles by Chinese artisans. In this article we critique the use of the term authentic in this setting and argue that it is the visitors’ experiences of the garden that act to authenticate authenticity, or otherwise, depending on their personal characteristics. In addition, we argue that ancient Chinese poetry is a suitable and important medium through which to offer visitors opportunities to engage with the garden and with Chineseness.

Background:  Supply risk becomes a crucial risk that manufacturing companies are facing while supplier information integration is one of the most important parts of supply chain management and supplier integration. The research based on the relationship between them is rarely found.

Purpose: To find, describe, and compare the significant relationship of supplier information integration and supply risk and identify whether supplier information integration can help to mitigate supply risk in Chinese and Thai manufacturing industries.

Methods: In order to answer the research questions, the search of the relevant literatures were carried out. The theoretical frame was made of basic concepts, approaches of supplier information integration, and sources of supply risk. The questionnaire was designed based on the theoretical framework and sent out among Chinese and Thai listed manufacturing companies. The correlation analysis was carried out as the main approach to check the significant relationships while the   descriptive statistics were used to described, compared, and analyzed in order to indentify the level of SII and perception of supply risk.

Conclusion: The level of supplier information integration and the perception of supply risk showed differences in Chinese and Thai manufacturers. Chinese manufacturing industry was at medium level of IT and share tactical and strategic information with suppliers with a concern on suppliers’ suppliers while the Thai manufacturing industry was at low level of IT and shared only tactical information with suppliers with very less concern on suppliers’ suppliers. Chinese manufacturers showed an obvious lower perception of getting affected by terrorist incidents and natural disasters while Thai manufacturers showed the same perception of all sources of supply risk. The results indicated that most of relationships between the sub items of supplier information integration and supply risk were not significant with some special cases that showed small and medium relationships. The contribution and suggestion were concluded at the end. 

Road noise barriers (RNBs) are important urban infrastructures to relieve the harm of traffic noise pollution for citizens. Therefore, obtaining the spatial distribution characteristics of RNBs, such as precise positions and mileage, can be of great help for obtaining more accurate urban noise maps and assessing the quality of the urban living environment for sustainable urban development. However, an effective and efficient method for identifying RNBs and acquiring their attributes in large areas is scarce. This study constructs an ensemble classification model (ECM) to automatically identify RNBs at the city level based on Baidu Street View (BSV). Firstly, the bootstrap sampling method is proposed to build a street view image-based train set, where the effect of imbalanced categories of samples was reduced by adding confusing negative samples. Secondly, two state-of-theart deep learning models, ResNet and DenseNet, are ensembled to construct an ECM based on the bagging framework. Finally, a post-processing method has been proposed based on geospatial analysis to eliminate street view images (SVIs) that are misclassified as RNBs. This study takes Suzhou, China as the study area to validate the proposed method. The model achieved an accuracy and F1-score of 0.98 and 0.90, respectively. The total mileage of the RNBs in Suzhou was 178,919 m. The results demonstrated the performance of the proposed RNBs identification framework. The significance of obtaining RNBs attributes for accelerating sustainable urban development has been demonstrated through the case of photovoltaic noise barriers (PVNBs).

Background: P2W games (Pay-to-Win) occupy a significant position in the Chinese gaming market, attracting a large number of players to participate and spend money. However, there is still a knowledge gap in understanding the motivational factors behind the behavior and psychology of Chinese players in terms of their purchase motivation in specific games Diablo: Immortal.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to use the TCV framework to explore in depth the purchase motivations of Chinese players in the P2W game Diablo Immortal and to find out what factors have the greatest impact on the purchase of virtual items within this game.

Method: In the method section, the article uses a qualitative research method to conduct semi-structured interviews. Convenience sampling and snowball sampling were conducted through friends close to the author, and 8 respondents were selected who met the research criteria. After data collection, a thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the data. 

Conclusion: This study reveals that Chinese players in the P2W game Diablo: Immortal are motivated to purchase virtual items based on five key themes: functional value, social value, emotional value, conditional value, and monetary value. Among these, social value emerges as the strongest motivator, followed closely by conditional value, emotional value, functional value, and monetary value. The findings highlight the importance of enhancing the social aspects of the game, such as fostering player interactions and creating a sense of community. Additionally, developers should consider offering attractive discounts and promotions to stimulate player buying behavior. These insights provide valuable guidance for game developers and operators seeking to understand and cater to the motivations of Chinese players in the context of virtual item purchases.

Denna kandidatuppsats syftar till att studera konsumenters inställning till mobilmarknads-föring och därmed potentialen hos denna nya marknadsföringskanal. För att erhålla en djupare förståelse för detta ämnesområde studerades tidigare forskningsrapporter inom mobilmarknadsföring, aktuella branschrapporter, samt litteratur inom konsumentbeteende och marknadsföring. En kvantitativ studie i form av en webbenkätundersökning genomfördes för att samla in relevant data. Resultaten tyder på att det från konsumenters sida finns ett visst intresse av att denna marknadsföringskanal vidareutvecklas, dock under förutsättningen att kanalen inte missbrukas genom av konsumenterna accepterad frekvens och innehåll av reklamutskick. Åldersgruppen upp till 20 år framstår som mest mottaglig för mobilmarknadsföring. Inställningen till reklam via SMS och MMS var generellt sett likartade. Undersökningen visar även att majoriteten av konsumenterna skulle bli mer positivt inställda till mobilmarknadsföring ifall sådana åtgärder skapade ett mervärde för konsumenten.

As computational thinking (CT) is being embraced by educational systems worldwide, researchers and teachers have posed important questions such as what to teach and what can be learned. These questions are universally crucial to the learning of all subjects. Nevertheless, there is no up-to-date, systematic overview of CT education for K-9 students that attempt to provide answers to these crucial questions. Thus, this systematic review presents a synthesis of 55 empirical studies, providing evidence of the development of computational thinking through programming in Scratch, one of the most popular visual block programming languages in schools. The purpose of this review is to systematically examine the CT skills that can be obtained through Scratch in K-9 based on empirical evidence. This systematic review has adopted Brennan and Resnick's (2012) framework as the basis for defining and identifying the expected CT skills in K-9. The major findings entail what computational thinking skills students in K-9 can learn through Scratch in relation to the framework mentioned above, taking the progression of learning into account. Additional CT skills that are not captured by the framework were identified including input/output, reading, interpreting and communicating code, using multimodal media, predictive thinking, and human-computer interaction. These additional CT skills are not currently presented in Brennan and Resnick's (2012) framework and can be considered as possible supplements to their framework. Furthermore, the paper discusses the difficulties regarding assessment and the progression of the identified skills, as well as problems with study designs. Finally, the paper sets out suggestions for future studies based on the current research gaps.

Many national curricula have incorporated computational thinking (CT) into compulsory education. Teacher ability to deliver the revised curriculum determines whether these new skills can be successfully integrated into teaching. Therefore, it is crucial to examine teacher readiness. This study measured Swedish K-9 teacher CT skills through a CT test validated by an expert review panel and a principal component analysis. Additionally, we engaged statistical analyses to examine the relationship between the teachers' background and their CT test scores, as well as their self-reported ability to teach CT. The result demonstrated the teachers' proficiency in different types of CT skills. Another finding revealed that the type of programming language mastered by teachers was associated with both their CT test score and self-reported ability to teach CT. This CT test can support teachers to identify specific areas for professional development and may facilitate the school management to plan teachers' competence training strategically.

Although Computational Thinking and Programming have become obligatory in many national curricula, the majority of teachers in practice are currently in dire need of support from both the research and teaching community. A national research and teacher development project was initiated in Sweden to address this issue. To develop their pedagogical competence in these new subjects, 31 in-service teachers from the project performed lesson studies at their schools. This study collected and analyzed the documentation of 12 lesson studies regarding how computational thinking skills are taught and assessed in K--9, with block-based programming. The study applies a validated CT framework to identify the involved computational thinking skills. The result presents a progression stage scheme for these skills in compulsory schools. The paper also discusses the problems and challenges in the assessment of computational thinking skills.

Although Computational Thinking and Programming have become obligatory in many national curricula, the majority of teachers in practice are currently in dire need of support from both the research and teaching community. A national research and teacher development project was initiated in Sweden to address this issue. To develop their pedagogical competence in these new subjects, 31 in-service teachers from the project performed lesson studies at their schools. This study collected and analyzed the documentation of 12 lesson studies regarding how computational thinking skills are taught and assessed in K-9, with block-based programming. The study applies a validated CT framework to identify the involved computational thinking skills. The result presents a progression stage scheme for these skills in compulsory schools. The paper also discusses the problems and challenges in the assessment of computational thinking skills.

PISA 2009 data were used to identify patterns of differences and similarities among PISA participating countries/economies. The concept of cultural clusters was used to show patterns of differences and similarities within and across country clusters in two indicators – average student performance and school differentiations (measured by proportion of variance in student test scores explained by schools). Results revealed striking similarities among countries within many cultural clusters, while significant dispersion was found in others, especially among Eastern Europe countries. Regression analyses indicated that cultural clusters explain the majority of variance in average student performance and school differentiations across countries, suggesting that culture is an important factor when comparing and contrasting different school systems.

Business groups around the world are remarkable phenomena, and many academic scholars have studied their pros and cons. However, few researchershave analyzedthe economic rationale for the existence of business groups in a systematic way. Furthermore, even fewer scholars have targeteddifferent economic rationale for business groups situated in different institutional and cultural backgrounds. Focusing on business groups from China, Japan and Sweden, this paper is trying to compare different economic rationale for having business groups in three distinctive types of economies: China represents the developing economiesemerging from the late 1980s; Japan represents the developed economiesthat industrialized after World WarII;Sweden represents the developed countrieswith a longhistory of capitalist economic system. We first propose three assumptions to explain the existence of business groups,based on both the related literature and our observation. Then, they are separately analyzed with evidence from selected business groupsin the three countries.

Our results show that the economic rationale for business groups in the three countries differs from each other. As for China, due to the active role of government in establishing business groups, business groups are a tool in the hands of the government to help the government to regulate the economy. Business groups in Japan mainly serve to reap economies of scope,while forming close relationshipswith the government to help revitalize the economy in critical times. Swedish business groups also diversify their industry portfolio to gain from economies of scope and at the same time seek cost-effective financing. The differences described above highly reflect the different institutional and cultural backgroundsin the countries respectively. The results might help academic scholars, business managers and government officials to better understand why business groups differ in various countries, and the role they are playing to overcome different social and economic problems.

The existence of business groups has to be discussed in a systematic and comparative way. This article analyzes business groups in three countries, China, Japan, and Sweden, by providing a view as to why and how business groups solve economic problems, and how the specific national context of the group affects its substance and performance. Our first observation is that the business groups studied emerged at times of institutional instability and persisted, thanks to cooperative capitalism and an export-oriented economy. Second, our business groups have used a diversification strategy at the group level in order to share risks and reduce costs at the firm level. Third, business groups seemed to reduce problems associated with high management costs and risk when many industries were held together in a single, large enterprise. With regard to internal markets, there seemed to be national differences in intra-firm behavior and the ways in which national governments mobilized business groups to reach certain economic and social goals. The emergence and persistence of successful business groups indicate that the Anglo-Saxon model of the firm is neither the only one, nor superior.

We structure a literature review which we provide with broader definitions of the majorconcepts: value creation, cost efficiency (leadership), competitive strategies, financialperformance and statement analysis. The literature review focuses mainly on Hong Kongcontext and literatures supporting the similar business strategies among similar size ofcompanies from various industries.The study takes forms as a quantitative study with a deductive approach. A set offinancial performance data will be collected and examined, to show how companyperformance is correlated to its strategies and what an outcome is. We aim at providinganother perspective of investment analysis approach to the potential investors, so theycould embrace the whole picture of available information.We develop two groups of hypothesis; the first group is company’s strategy measures thatshow no effect on financial performance, the second group is company’s strategymeasures that show some effect on financial performance.The result indicates while normally staff cost and cost of sale are recognized as costleadership measure under product industry, it implies positive contribution to valuecreation financial performance in service industry, instead of having influence onprofitability. Also, the wealth generated from previous sale revenue margin will havepositive impact on company’s competiveness in the hotel industry.Keywords: value creation cost leadership, competitive strategies, financial performanceand statement analysis

Many Chinese car companies have attempted to invest in and purchase famous Swedish companies, which attracted a lot of attention of the media, particularly in Sweden and America. The investment is a complex transaction when companies from two countries are involved and are much different. This difference is the starting point for this study.

This thesis aims to analyze the image of China in Swedish and American media. The study suggests that the representation of China in three newspapers is deeply rooted in ideology. Theories on media representation are applied and used in a qualitative analysis in order to present how the image of China is constructed. Through analyzing the twenty-five selected samples to explore how the media understood the Saab event and how they understood Chinese financial power. The main theoretical concept of the thesis is ideology, which is used to analyze the potential meanings of the Swedish and American notions of China. The findings show that both positive and negative images of China were portrayed by Swedish and American media. Furthermore, Chinese political leaders played an important role in the economic activity were also a central theme.

As the stock market plays an important role in the global economy and Chinese economy become progressively significant part of the world economy, we are interested in the Chinese stock market. After we compared the methods on the stock market, we choose to use the CAPM and the APT model on Chinese stock market. As a lot papers study on the Main Board of Chinese stock market, we pay our attention on the SME Board and the ChiNext Board of Chinese stock market. We put the samples from the SME Board and the ChiNext Board into the regression models which are based on the CAPM and the APT model, and then we can use the regression models to forecast the long returns. Comparing the forecast ln returns with the true ln returns, we may find that the CAMP or the APT model can forecast better on the SME Board and the ChiNext Board. The systematic risk is the only factor we put the regression model based on the CAPM. For the regression model based on the APT model, we use three factors which are the systematic risk, daily exchange volume and the volatility. Our results show that the APT model can explain factors better than the CAPM for the samples from the SME Board and the ChiNext Board. On the other hand, we could not find evidence that the APT Model can forecast better than the CAPM for the SME Board and the ChiNext Board.

Nowadays, with the development of international economy, international investment has become one of the most important ways to prompt global economic development. The number of the bilateral treaties (BITs) and multilateral treaties are increasing as well. These treaties are an important basis for resolving disputes between investors in international arbitration. Many treaties contain a sunset clause. In the field of international law, the use and utility of sunset clauses has remained largely unnoticed despite the fact that they have been employed in major international treaties and agreements. 

Nowadays, such clauses have become a core feature in international investment agreements, playing an underappreciated role with the ability to enhance legal certainly in regards to the tension between stability and flexibility. Moreover, sunset clauses complement the protection to investors with the entrenchment effect. 

But meanwhile, as one of the important economic entities in the global economic development, the European Union (EU) is trying to terminate all intra-EU BITs, as well as the sunset clauses which contained in the BITs. 

This thesis analyse the impact of the sunset clause on intra-EU arbitration after the EU members terminated their intra-EU BITs. Trying to clarify the nature and the utility of the sunset clause in EU law, and try to disengage from the entrenchment effect of the sunset clause at EU and international level.

This paper studies the link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and operating performance of companies between two countries in the same industry. This study analyze the relationship between financial performance indicators ROE (return on equity), OM (operating margin) and CSD (corporate social disclosure) for five listed Swedish apparel companies on the Stockholm exchange market and five listed Chinese apparel companies on the Chinese exchange market by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main findings are that there are mixed results in the relationship between CSR disclosure and operating performance for two countries’ companies. And there are some differences in this relationship between two countries’ companies.

An increasing number of foreign companies want to enter the Chinese market. Online advertising is one of the indispensable means of the company's operation and marketing, and foreign companies poorly understood the online advertising channels in China. Therefore, this study uses the AISAS model to study the preferences of Chinese millennial generation Taobao users for online advertising channels. And research through three dimensions are gender, city level and different product categories. Specifically, this research through online questionnaires and finally collected 150 samples, it was found that Chinese millennial generation Taobao users favored the promotion of WeChat public accounts, followed by Pre-movie adverts. Further, the study confirms that consumers do have preferences for online advertising choices and that they will change as they are placed on different e-commerce platforms. Based on the previous study's interpretation of preferences, the preferences are defined as five exact post behaviors to better evaluate consumers' choices for online advertising. Moreover, through data analysis, it is found that there are differences between male and female online advertising channels among Chinese millennial generation Taobao users. Females prefer online advertising channels that are interactive than males such as live streaming. Males prefer online advertising channels that are dominated by pictures/images for instance mini banners in App and Web. In addition, live streaming has an advantage in the household goods category. 

Motivation är ett mycket diskuterat problem i moderna språk undervisning. Hur motiverar man eleverna blir en besvärlig fråga hos alla moderna språklärare. Det här arbetet syftar till att ta reda på hur problem/relationsorienterade temaarbeten motiverar elevernas lärande teoretiskt och hur det ser ut i praktik när det gäller moderna språk undervisning. Teoretiska stöd kommer från Vygotskijs och Piagets teorier om lärande och utveckling i sociokulturellt perspektiv, och tidigare forskningar om temaarbete och motivation från olika pedagoger undersöks för att inspirera valet av tema i mitt arbete. Genom intervjuer samlade jag elevernas åsikter om och olika moderna språklärares erfarenheter och reflektioner kring problem/relationsorienterade temaarbete. Med hjälp av observation av en lektion jämförde jag lärarnas beskrivningar med praktiska situationen av undersökningsfenomenet.

Undersökningen visar att problem/relationsorienterade temaarbete kan stärka elevernas motivation i varierande grad. Många pedagoger har lyckats med att nå deras pedagogiskt mål med sina satsningar på temaarbete. Samtidigt innebär temaarbete också högre krav på undervisande lärarna. De förväntas vara pedagogiskt skickliga. Dessutom bör de ha ett tydligt ledarskap när det gäller att planera och strukturera undervisning. De förväntas också kunna samspela med och leda eleverna. Praktik kan skilja sig från teorin, som när lärarens väl planerade temaarbete bryts ibland av elevernas passiva beteende eller motstånd på grund av brist på kunskaper. Därför är det viktigt för läraren att ta reda på orsaker varför de omotiverade eleverna inte sköter sig i lektionen och sen göra lärande främjande anpassningar för dem.

I slutet av arbetet diskuteras också möjliga framtida undersökningar kring frågorna t.ex.: hur ska läraren hitta ett individuellt anpassade tema för varje elev, kan mer kunskaper i ett område främja ens förståelse i ämnet? I så fall, hur ska elevernas kunskap i målspråket bedömas?

Aims and objectives: To develop and validate the Chinese version of Verbal and Social Interaction Questionnaire for Nursing Students. Background: The development of caring interaction skills is particularly important for achieving better nursing student–patient interactions. Nursing students in China, as in most countries, have often failed to establish a caring interaction with their patients. There is a lack of instruments to explore the difficulties and problems in nursing student–patient interactions in China. Design: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was carried out. Methods: Data for cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric testing purposes were collected between May 10, 2017 and November 11, 2017. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed; pilot testing, content validity and reliability were assessed for the translated questionnaire. EQUATOR guidelines for observational studies (strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology) were applied. Results: 716 nursing students from four universities in China completed the questionnaire. A pilot testing (n = 32) was conducted at a university hospital. The internal consistency reliability and the intra-class correlation coefficients were satisfactory. The overall content validity index was 0.95. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a four-factor solution, explaining 61.26% of the variance, and the items had factor loadings ranging from 0.46–0.82. The final model's fit indexes were relatively acceptable. Overall, this instrument demonstrated sound psychometric properties. Conclusion: The Chinese version of Verbal and Social Interaction Questionnaire for Nursing Students has a high level of reliability and acceptable content validity. However, some values in the construct validity assessment were lower than was hypothesised, suggesting a need for further model modification. Relevance to clinical practice: This easy-to-use instrument may help nursing educators, clinicians and managers in the assessment and development of students’ interactional skills during their training or student–nurse transition period. Using the questionnaire could both provide the students with a greater understanding of caring interactions and help the nursing educators gain a better comprehension of the students’ verbal, social and interactional skills. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Ensamkommande ungdomar som omfattas av den nya gymnasielagen har andra förutsättningar till skillnad från andra individer. Med tanke på målgruppens nuvarande situation kan varje karriärval både begränsa men också ge möjligheter för framtida karriärmål. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur ensamkommande ungdomar ser på sina framtida karriärval. Studiens frågeställning lyder Hur ser ensamkommande ungdomar som omfattas av den nya gymnasielagen på sina framtida karriärval? Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter är Hodkinson och Sparkes teori om Careership (1997) och CIP-teorin av Sampson et al (2004). Studiens informanter består av sju killar från Afghanistan och har undersökts med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer. 

Resultatet i denna studie visar att ensamkommande ungdomars syn på framtida karriärval grundar sig i möjligheter och begränsningar. Den nya gymnasielagen har visat sig vara en möjlighet för ungdomarna att få stanna i Sverige och påbörja ett nytt liv. Ungdomarna har fått möjligheten att välja en yrkesutbildning som ska göra det lättare för dem att hitta arbete efter avklarade studier. Detta i sin tur har gett ungdomarna möjligheten att få stanna i Sverige eftersom kravet är att de ska hitta ett arbete efter examen. Den nya gymnasielagen har å andra sidan också begränsat ungdomarnas framtida karriärval. Eftersom ungdomarna har fått anpassa sig till situationen och de utbildningar som har funnits, har detta lett till att de inte har kunnat fokusera på att nå sina drömyrken. Etablering på arbetsmarknaden har också begränsat ungdomarnas karriärval vilket leder till att det är svårt att få arbete och ta sig vidare i jakten på framtida karriärmål. Dock har det visat sig att det sociala nätverk som ungdomarna har fått ta del av har gett möjligheter till att knyta kontakter och komma in i samhället på ett smidigt sätt. Det sociala nätverket har även gett ungdomarna hopp om att fortsätta kämpa för en framtid i Sverige. 

This paper explores MultiAgent Systems coordination from a socio-psychological point of view. Activity Theory is introduced to explain the coordination among intelligent agents. The hierarchy and motivation thinking from Activity Theory is used to define the motivation driven MultiAgent Systems coordination mechanism. Finally, we apply this mechanism into a health care scenario.

Syftet med undersökningen var att undersöka landskapsförändring och skogsutveckling under de senaste århundraden kring Skrylle naturreservat som är beläget mellan Södra Sandby och Dalby i Lunds kommun. Hur det har sett ut, vad har förändrats samt varför, är frågor som behandlas i undersökningen. Resultatet framställdes med hjälp av äldre historiska kartor samt flygbilder med komplettering av skriftligt källmaterial. 

Resultatet visar att största förändringen skedde mellan 1700- och 1800-talet då markanvändningen förändrades helt, från att gå från lövskog till öppen mark. En del förändringar av skogstyp skedde under 1900-talet då gran planterades i området. Den totala skogsarealen är mindre idag än vad det har varit som mest förr. Mycket av förändringarna beror på människans behov och intresse men även en del naturkatastrofer har påverkat skogsutvecklingen.

This study uses concepts of power and 'scaled politics' to analyze the effects of environmentalization and technocratic and market-based measures in China. Political scientists have explored the politics behind the proactive engagement of the Chinese state in governing the environment since the 2000s, also drawing on political ecology. Based on policy document analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, the study investigates a case of ecological resettlement in Inner Mongolia by examining how this became a new solution to desertification and rangeland degradation. The article shows how resettlement was implemented through multi-scalar practices and the reconfiguration of spatial relations, and why pastoral households responded to resettlement in certain ways. The state turned certain areas and people (associated with overgrazing) into subjects of governance. By distinguishing the different strategies used by central and local government, the analysis shows that disciplinary and neoliberal environmentality are associated with scalar practices between the state and the people, and within the state system. Neoliberal environmentality, however, counteracts the making of environmental subjects and encounters resistance. Sovereign environmentality is still deployed as a means to control local government and the obedience of herders. Pastoralists resist this, depending on their different subjectivities. The study advances our understanding of the multiple governmentality perspective, its analytics, and scalar processes.

En Mongolie intérieure, le gouvernement chinois a engagé la lutte contre la désertification des steppes et la dégradation des terres. Depuis une dizaine d’années, il encourage la migration et la sédentarisation des éleveurs nomades en milieu urbain. Sur le terrain, si les subventions de l’État poussent certains à partir en laissant derrière eux leurs terres, d’autres restent profondément attachés à leur mode de vie. Mais les méthodes traditionnelles de gestion de l’espace, comme la transhumance, sont de plus en plus coûteuses et ne répondent plus aux règles du développementéconomique.

China's quest for sustainable development has given birth to a set of contested ‘ecological construction’ programmes. Focusing on ‘ecological resettlement’, a type of policy measure in a programme for restoring degraded grasslands, this thesis sets out a critical analysis in opposition to the dominant technical and managerial approaches to understanding environmentalisation. The aim is to draw out the politics of the formulation, implementation and effects of ecological resettlement at and across different scales. The study combines fieldwork, interviews, analysis of policy documents, and statistical analysis while theoretically, in addition to political ecology, it incorporates concepts and models from environmental governance, migration, and pastoralism studies. Environmentalisation is examined through three types of analysis: environmentalisation of the state, reshaping of state-society relations, and (re)territorialisation. A central theme is how local processes are linked to national considerations and how the local state acts as an intermediary between the central state and the pastoralists. The analysis exposes the practices that enabled the central state to define the problem of grasslands and devise interventions, illustrating the environmentalisation of the state. However, at the local level, incentives and interests defined by the political structure drove the developmental local state to pursue short-term-effective rather than sustainable practices. On the other hand, while the pastoral households responded to the projects with different strategies, their migration decisions suggested that social, economic and cultural considerations played a more important role than environmental concerns. Moreover, ecological resettlement has led to a significant change of Mongolian pastoralism. Land-tenure-based management further fragmented rangelands while the emergence of new social arrangements enabled migrant households to remain involved with pastoralism.

In the last decade environmental policies, particularly ecological resettlement, have changed China's pastoral areas. This paper explores the difficulty in conserving rangeland through ecological resettlement. The paper focuses on how ecological resettlement policy has been translated into practice, and how the affected people responded with migration decisions. Empirical findings in a pastoral township in Inner Mongolia demonstrate that local politicians have used the projects to stress economic restructuring, promotion of non-farming activities and urbanization. Meanwhile, affected households haved used migration strategies to adapt to the changing economic and social environments rather than the changing natural environment. The difficulty of conserving rangelands and the marginalization of environmental concerns is a result of locally defined modernization development interests and the affected households' adaptive behaviours.

The role of migration mediation in the global circulation of labour has been receiving increasing attention. Channel is a frequently used, but under-theorised, concept in such studies. Drawing on mobilities perspectives, especially migration infrastructure and three aspects of mobility (route, speed and friction), this paper fosters a framework – channelling through bureaucracy. It seeks to go beyond seeing channels as structure and mechanism to argue channelling is a productive and differentiating process whereby both state and intermediary actors actively intervene in migrants’ mobilities. Based on documentary analysis, interviews and participatory observation in Sweden and China, we demonstrate how, in the last decade, migration intermediaries and state actors channel Chinese migrants’ mobilities in relation to three major shifts in Swedish immigration bureaucracy. The empirical findings illustrate that, as a concept, channelling illustrates, specifically, how conflicts and collaborations between the regulatory and commercial dimensions of migration mediation drive new modes of operation and self-reinforcing of migration infrastructures. Additionally, the study indicates how channelling operates through these three specific aspects of mobility to include, exclude, favour, disadvantage, filter and direct different intermediary actors and migrants. Future research could draw on mobilities studies and the specific forms of interactions between state actors and migration intermediaries to deepen the understanding of migration mediation.

The last decades have seen rapid growth of renewable energy globally for accommodating the urgent need of mitigating climate change. Large-scale projects like solar farms are actively financed by transnational investors to get established in drylands like Sahara. The Earth-system model simulations on large-scale solar-farm scenarios show an increased regional rainfall and vegetation cover, analogue to a “green Sahara” that happened in the past. It will not only induce local climate and ecosystem changes but also prompt remote impacts globally through atmospheric teleconnections and ocean dynamics. This suggests that spatial tensions are inherent to climate change mitigation measures, where action in one place at a particular time impacts not only this place and the short time but place at distance and time in the future. Meanwhile, case studies in social sciences seem to suggest common unintended social consequences of the ongoing projects but no systematic assessment across these projects has been done. This study thus aims to pilot an interdisciplinary investigation of the multi-dimensional effects of large-scale renewable energy projects, mainly solar farms in drylands. Our literature review of the social effects across solar farms and other major types of renewable energy projects shows that, local host communities widely bear adverse social consequences from these projects despite there are benefits at regional, national, and transnational levels. Economic redistribution and social differentiation rapidly occur through land acquisition, livelihoods, compensation, and development programs, further dividing local communities and amplifying inequalities. These social effects could be further complicated by the likely local climate and ecosystem changes as shown by our Earth-system model simulations. Based on this combined analysis, we conclude that spatial tensions in the current climate change mitigation measures challenge the assumption of global common goods and the reach of global justices. We urge interdisciplinary research to combine their different expertise for developing integrated conceptual and methodological models, for better understanding the intersected effects of renewable energy projects on drylands, and for advising fair and just climate mitigation policy and measures.

Urban clusters are the expected products of high levels of industry and urbanization in a country, as well as being the basic units of participation in global competition. With respect to China, urban clusters are regarded as the dominant formation for boosting the China's urbanization process. However, to date, there is no coincident, efficient, and credible methodological system and set of techniques to identify Chinese urban clusters. This research investigates the potential of an computerized identification method supported by geographic information techniques to provide a better understanding of the distribution of China's urban clusters. The identification method is executed based on a geographic information database, a digital elevation model, and socio-economic data with the aid of ArcInfo Macro Language programming. In the method, preliminary boundaries are identified according to transportation accessibility, and final identifications are achieved from limiting city numbers, population, and GDP in a region with the aid of the rasterized socio-economic dataset. The results show that the method identifies nine Chinese urban clusters, i.e., Pearl River Delta, Lower Yangtze River Valley, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Northeast China, Middle Yangtze River Valley, Central China Plains, Western Taiwan Strait, Guanzhong and Chengdu-Chongqing urban clusters. This research represents the first study involving the computerized identification of China's urban clusters. Moreover, compared to other related studies, the study's approach, which combines transportation accessibility and socio-economic characteristics, is shown to be a distinct, effective and reliable way of identifying urban clusters.

Human movements within and across China’s borders are increasingly diverse, complex, and interlinked, in strong entanglements with changing globalization and urbanization processes. This chapter aims to map and highlight the role of economic globalization in shaping the interlocking dynamics of China’s internal and international migration and to assess how the globalization-migration relationship is similarly or differently examined in these two dichotomized research groups. Highlighting a historical perspective, our literature review shows internal and international migrants are linked in multiple underexplored ways through social networks, infrastructures, and use of working and living spaces. While both research groups used to echoing a push-pull and development-migration nexus approach, they are turning towards more experience-focused and qualitative assessment of the migration process. Innovative approaches that go beyond rural-urban and internal-international binaries are in urgent need to explore more diverse and interwoven forms of migration taking place in rapidly shifting social, economic, and political contexts.

A rapidly growing body of work explores platform-mediated economy and work under the umbrella term ‘Platform Urbanism’. This focus and academic discourse risk keeping digital spaces and practices in the rural context in the shadow or subordinated to urban-based understandings. Concurrently, digital studies on the rural have for long focused on technocratic approaches to improving information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and connectivity. While recently the potentials of digitalization in transforming agriculture, small businesses, health care, and transportation in rural areas are receiving significant attention, these debates remain surprisingly disconnected from vibrant discussions of the platform economy. Thus, the remaking of rural geographies through the platform economy, and vice versa, remains under-examined. This chapter addresses the importance of spatiality and geography in considering the platform economy with examples of rural small business and agriculture. It illustrates why the nuances and complexity of rural spaces need to become part of understanding the dynamics of the platform economy. Centring rural as important and spatially significant not only lifts the complexity of rural platform processes but also creates opportunities for new questions and patterns. Rural geographical perspectives highlight relational and interlocking spaces found in the rural platform economy and offer the potential for a deeper understanding of social-technical-spatial relations.

A rapidly growing body of work explores platform-mediated economy and work under the umbrella term ‘Platform Urbanism’. This focus and academic discourse risk keeping digital spaces and practices in the rural context in the shadow or subordinated to urban-based understandings. Concurrently, digital studies on the rural have for long focused on technocratic approaches to improving information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and connectivity. While recently the potentials of digitalization in transforming agriculture, small businesses, health care, and transportation in rural areas are receiving significant attention, these debates remain surprisingly disconnected from vibrant discussions of the platform economy. Thus, the remaking of rural geographies through the platform economy, and vice versa, remains under-examined. This chapter addresses the importance of spatiality and geography in considering the platform economy with examples of rural small business and agriculture. It illustrates why the nuances and complexity of rural spaces need to become part of understanding the dynamics of the platform economy. Centring rural as important and spatially significant not only lifts the complexity of rural platform processes but also creates opportunities for new questions and patterns. Rural geographical perspectives highlight relational and interlocking spaces found in the rural platform economy and offer the potential for a deeper understanding of social-technical-spatial relations.

Digital technologies are changing how and where we live, work and socialize. Rural areas are distinctive spaces and places but in the current debates of new digital phenomena, digital spaces and practices risk not being contextualized with sensitivities to rural geographies. This study aims to map how digital has been examined to date in rural-focused studies, and accordingly present propositions for how rural-digital studies can be sensitive to the distinctive and diverse character of rural spaces and places. We conduct a two-stage/scale literature review, combining 1) computational topic modelling from a Global Dataset (459 article abstracts) with 2) qualitative content analysis from a sub-dataset focusing on the Nordic region (Nordic Sub-Dataset, 17 full articles). We begin with a topic modelling analysis generating ten major themes (topics) leading to an overview of how research areas are connected to the meaning of rural context. Turning to the Nordic region, as an in-depth example, we illustrate the complexity of rural digital geographies, through a qualitative content analysis. This demonstrates that digital in rural contexts are primarily positioned outwardly as social/regional development and business/economy, and less situated inwardly through individual experience and community building.Combined we show a wide spectrum of rural-digital relations but demonstrate that rural contexts in rural-digital relations need more attention. We propose three propositions to invite deeper rural contextualizations in future digital studies to uphold the importance of rural spaces and places through, by and with digital geography.

Digital technologies are changing how and where we live, work and socialize. Rural areas are distinctive spaces and places but in the current debates of new digital phenomena, digital spaces and practices risk not being contextualized with sensitivities to rural geographies. This study aims to map how digital has been examined to date in rural-focused studies, and accordingly present propositions for how rural-digital studies can be sensitive to the distinctive and diverse character of rural spaces and places. We conduct a two-stage/scale literature review, combining 1) computational topic modelling from a Global Dataset (459 article abstracts) with 2) qualitative content analysis from a sub-dataset focusing on the Nordic region (Nordic Sub-Dataset, 17 full articles). We begin with a topic modelling analysis generating ten major themes (topics) leading to an overview of how research areas are connected to the meaning of rural context. Turning to the Nordic region, as an in-depth example, we illustrate the complexity of rural digital geographies, through a qualitative content analysis. This demonstrates that digital in rural contexts are primarily positioned outwardly as social/regional development and business/economy, and less situated inwardly through individual experience and community building. Combined we show a wide spectrum of rural-digital relations but demonstrate that rural contexts in rural-digital relations need more attention. We propose three propositions to invite deeper rural contextualizations in future digital studies to uphold the importance of rural spaces and places through, by and with digital geography.

KFC and McDonald’s are two representatives of American fast food brands who are operating in China.Considering the cultural differences between American and Chinese culture, whether and how they adaptthemselves to the Chinese culture caught the authors’ attention. This thesis aimed to explore the culturaladaptation patterns of these two brands, and find out what factors contribute to a successful culturaladaptation model from customers’ perspective.In order to find the answer, the authors based this study on academic theories and studies together withobjective information of KFC and McDonald’s, and carried on a survey based on Chinese market. Aftercombining empirical findings and analysis, two models were derived for KFC and McDonald’srespectively. After the analysis, this thesis also discussed implication and limitation of the results, andsuggestion for future study was presented.

The goal of this thesis will be to formulate an economic model that exposes the relationship between consumption of luxury goods and selected factors which includes advertising, disposable income, interest rate, price index and stock premium.

By building the Multiple Linear Regressions model to formulate the consumption function and using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) as the method, it becomes apparent that advertising, disposable income and the previous quarter´s disposable income are the major variables to affect luxury good consumption, of all the factors. Furthermore, the previous quarter´s disposable income has a slightly higher effect than the current one on luxury consumption. Similar studies, which focus on luxury items, have proposed models that test a single or a few variables at a time, and others that concentrate on durable goods have a wide range of variables to examine. I attempt to combine both in my model to test luxury consumption with a wide range of variables.

This thesis explores the application of machine learning techniques, a type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to learn from data, in hydroponic systems for predicting basil plant height. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, using nutrient-rich water instead. Conducted at Devoteam, an IT consulting firm in Malmö, the study involved the implementation of two hydroponic systems: Deep Water Culture and Nutrient Film Technique, focusing on monitoring and collecting data such as electrical conductivity, pH levels, water temperature. Utilizing five distinct machine learning models, namely Linear Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Support Vector Regression, and K-Nearest Neighbours, we analyzed their performance in predicting basil plant height. Data were collected using a system equipped with a microcontroller unit, EC sensor, and water temperature sensor, supplemented by data from the open dataset, OpenAg. Our findings indicate that the Random Forest model consistently outperformed other models across datasets, demonstrating superior accuracy and predictive capability. This research provides insights into leveraging machine learning for optimizing hydroponic cultivation practices.