Guatemala is a democratic country in Central America characterized by many social inequalities which limits the quality of democracy in the country. This thesis is based on field research in Monterrico, on a local community in Guatemala, to investigate democratic participation on a local level, from an inclusivity perspective. This topic is investigated in relation to local development processes w

This is a study of the promotion of democracy and governance as a part of Japan’s official development cooperation. Despite being one of few Asian democracies among aid donors, Japan’s work with democracy and governance has largely been overlooked in the discussion of its aid programme. This research seeks to expand on the current literature by examining what factors and driving forces interact to

The construction of episodic memory is an automatic process. Event segmentation theory proposed that segmentation of the continuous perceptual stream into separate memory events occurs when changes in external boundaries lead to changes in internal perceptual and conceptual boundaries. The influence of perceptual and conceptual boundaries on episodic memory encoding has been the subject of intensi

For over five hundred years, the Roma people have been a part of Swedish society. During these five centuries their subsistence has been subjected to oppression, both institutional and civil. Despite the endeavours to improve the lives of the Roma, and governmental attempts to combat stereotypes, the discursive antiziganism is still prevailing in Sweden today. The guiding question throughout the

Fast fashion-branschen står inför utmaningar som kräver åtgärder för att bli en mer hållbar bransch. Produktionen av kläder och textilier är en stor källa till föroreningar och koldioxidutsläpp samtidigt som arbetarna inom produktionens arbetsförhållanden ofta är ohållbara. Det påpekas att för att branschen ska bli mer hållbar krävs det att hållbarhetsmetoder implementeras i hela försörjningskedja

This thesis employs a mixed-method sequential explanatory design to investigate perceived loneliness. In the first phase, using survey data from SOM-undersökningen (2023), the quantitative analysis uncovers an association between tertiary education and perceived loneliness in Sweden; diverging from established literature that links education to improved subjective health outcomes. In the second, q

Bakgrund: Samverkan: Samverkansprojekt blir allt mer och mer vanligt för större infrastrukturprojekt i Sverige. I ett samverkansprojekt samarbetar de olika aktörerna för att tillsammans arbeta fram till ett gemensamt mål och dessa projekt har flera fördelar, bland annat ökad transparens och ofta högre kvalitet. Ett sådant projekt är en tillfällig organisation som måste vara flexibel och anpassnin

De standardiserade mätmetoder som används för att bestämma betongs tryckhållfasthet är anpassade för mätning efter relativt lång tid, men ifall det är av intresse att bestämma betongens hållfasthet kort tid efter gjutning är dessa metoder inte helt rättvisande. Cementbaserad betong är ett av världens vanligaste byggmaterial. Den har en god förmåga att motstå tryckspänningar och är inte speciellt Concrete is a building material that is normally cast according recipes, where a larger proportion of cement in the mixture results in a faster strength development and increased ultimate strength. The compressive strength, which can be considered as the most important property of concrete, is usually measured by a standardized procedure, where a test specimen is subjected to a progressively incre

Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) technology has become increasingly important in the field of wireless communication due to its ability to highly increase the capacity and efficiency of wireless networks [1]. Beamforming, as a technique used in MU-MIMO systems, improves network performance by improving signal quality and reducing interference. With the emergence of 5G and beyond

Since 1988 there have been international attempts to regulate banks with the Basel Rules; despite these international efforts to regulate banks within the Basel Rules, the rules have been insufficient. The financial crisis of 2008 highlighted the importance of regulatory oversight in the banking sector. The crisis resulted in strengthened regulatory approaches worldwide, within the USA and Europe,

Argentina is a pioneer in practicing export-oriented extractivism as a model of socio-economic development. A prevalent extractive project is genetically modified (GM) soy, which was adopted under neoliberal governance in the 1990s and has had a variety of socio-environmental consequences in the country. During the progressive, Peronist, ‘post-neoliberal’ Kirchner administrations (2003-2015), gove

This master’s thesis concerns itself with the subject of political usage of a societal crisis, namely the contemporary utilization of narrative renderings of the Swedish famine of 1771-1772. During the last years of the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1719-1772) political and social tension were on its peak. The two rivaling political parties, the “hats” and the “caps” fought ferociously in the Diet, wh

The social contract theory hypothesis of a memory enhancement for cheaters remains a continued debate, but few studies have addressed the potential inferential role of such an enhancement. Moreover, little research has been conducted on interindividual characteristics and how these may impact cheating sensitivity. This study conducted a preference-by-association experiment which creates associativ

Introduction: Electro-responsive materials have many applications such as electronic devices, actuators, and artificial muscles. Background: When an electric field is applied to electro-responsive materials, they can change in size, shape, or conformation. Aim: The aim of this thesis is to develop an operationally practical synthesis of a key building block in a proposed electro-responsive materi

The tense situation over the territorial conflict in the South China Sea has intensified in recent years with China's increased military presence and actions. This has contributed to increased concern among the ASEAN states in the region. It has also affected the United States´s security policy on how to relate to China as an international power. The main objective of this study is to examine

This thesis investigates the issue of computer vision-based detection of oncoming cars during night-time, a critical road safety issue for automated high-beam assist. We propose a holistic image classification approach that uses deep learning methods to detect light artifacts from an oncoming car’s headlights before the car is entirely visible. We explore six different model architectures, includi

With the introduction of millimeter-wave antenna arrays in 5G base-stations and ever-increasing data volumes, the power consumption of the signal processing in digital radio systems has increased over the last decade. This, combined with increased cost and environmental awareness, has put focus on power optimization. This thesis investigates different aspects of optimizing one important component

In Italy, ideas surrounding family and motherhood seem to be unveiled as myths rather than values. Despite the historical prominence of these notions within the national political and social agenda, the country's support to families and predominantly female caregivers remains severely inadequate. This insufficiency not only hinders progress in female employment – already one of the lowest in E

The structural reforms of the curriculum implemented by the Hong Kong administration in the field of education at the beginning of the 2000s had profound implications for the future perspectives and ambitions of students and graduates. This thesis tries to investigate the key constraints posed by the reforms and their direct influence on Hong Kong local student’s perception of their future careers

Synthetic data generation has emerged as a valuable technique for addressing data scarcity and privacy concerns and improving machine learning algorithms. This thesis focuses on progressing the field of synthetic data generation, which may play a crucial role in AI-heavy industries such as telecommunications. Generative Adversarial Networks successfully generate various types of synthetic data but