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Macroeconomic forecasting is a classic problem, today most often modeled using time series analysis. Few attempts have been made using machine learning methods, and even fewer incorporating unconventional data, such as that from social media. In this thesis, a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) is used to predict U.S. unemployment, beating the ARIMA benchmark on all horizons. Furthermore, attempts at using Twitter data and the Natural Language Processing (NLP) model DistilBERT are performed. While these attempts do not beat the benchmark, they do show promising results with predictive power. The models are also tested at predicting the U.S. stock index S&P 500. For these models, the Twitter data does improve the accuracy and shows the potential of social media data when predicting a more erratic index with less seasonality that is more responsive to current trends in public discourse. The results also show that Twitter data can be used to predict trends in both unemployment and the S&P 500 index. This sets the stage for further research into NLP-GAN models for macroeconomic predictions using social media data. Makroekonomiska prognoser är sedan länge en svår utmaning. Idag löses de oftast med tidsserieanalys och få försök har gjorts med maskininlärning. I denna uppsats används ett generativt motstridande nätverk (GAN) för att förutspå amerikansk arbetslöshet, med resultat som slår samtliga riktmärken satta av en ARIMA. Ett försök görs också till att använda data från Twitter och den datorlingvistiska (NLP) modellen DistilBERT. Dessa modeller slår inte riktmärkena men visar lovande resultat. Modellerna testas vidare på det amerikanska börsindexet S&P 500. För dessa modeller förbättrade Twitterdata resultaten vilket visar på den potential data från sociala medier har när de appliceras på mer oregelbunda index, utan tydligt säsongsberoende och som är mer känsliga för trender i det offentliga samtalet. Resultaten visar på att Twitterdata kan användas för att hitta trender i både amerikansk arbetslöshet och S&P 500 indexet. Detta lägger grunden för fortsatt forskning inom NLP-GAN modeller för makroekonomiska prognoser baserade på data från sociala medier.

The hypothesis of this study is that the local government act in Sweden 1862 was an instrument for the state to keep its´ political influence on the local level. It did not open for local self-government. The swedish historians Dahlkvist and Strandberg description of the Swedish local government act support this hypothesis, as does the analysis of political scientists Pettersson and Söderlind. The general opinion that the local government act opened for local self-government does still exist among many swedish historians. This study had two aims. The first was to investigate the actual extent of self-government in Borgvik, a small municipality in Sweden during the period 1861-1924. The second aim was to investigate which groups in the society that had the power on the municipal councils and if the situation changed during the period. Both are important factors to determine if there has been any democratization on the local level and to know if there was any local self-government. The hypothesis has been verified. The local government act did not open for a larger local self-government in Borgvik. The municipal issues with mandate in local self-government were considerable larger in number before the introduction of the act than after. The national regulated issues were in the whole investigated period in majority in proportion to the local issues. Due to the suffrage system in Sweden the wealthy farmers and superior officials employed by the factory in Borgvik kept their power. It did not change until universal suffrage was introduced in 1918-21.

This Bachelor’s Thesis discusses the Swedish artist and photographer Birger Gabriel Sjöberg. He was born in Varberg, Sweden in the year of 1835 and died 40 years later, in the year of 1875. During his short-lived life he accomplished creating both paintings and photographs connected to his hometown. These are now of value by culture-historical means. By answering question formulations regarding his living, education and esthetic production, the main purpose is to give a synoptic presentation of both his life and work. Since Sjöberg is not a part of the widely known context of art history, the thesis also strives to bring a light to a mostly unknown and unwritten artist. This study contains of two main parts, one biographical part, and one iconological part were a chosen number of his paintings and photographs are discussed. Throughout the iconological part, the works are analysed by means of Heinrich Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History. The introducing of the works is to give an overall apprehension about what he achieved concerning his creating in both work and private life.

AbstractThousands of Roma were killed in Ukraine by the Nazis and auxiliary police on the spot. There are more than 50,000 Roma in today’s Ukraine, represented by second and third generation decendants of the genocide survivors. The discussion on Roma identity cannot be isolated from the memory of the genocide, which makes the struggle over the past a reflexive landmark that mobilizes the Roma movement. About twenty Roma genocide memorials have been erected in Ukraine during last decade, and in 2016 the national memorial of the Roma genocide was opened in Babi Yar. However, scholars do not have a clear picture of memory narratives and memory practices of the Roma genocide in Ukraine. A comprehensive analysis of the contemporary situation is not possible without an examination of the history and memory of the Roma genocide before 1991.

India went to war in Europe in 1914 to plug the gaps on the Allied line of defence. Her army wasn't trained to fight a war of an industrial nature and they were equipped as part of British Policy with obsolete weapons. Yet they managed to save the honour of Britain. Over the next four years, India would recruit over 1.4 million troops and send over 1.3 million overseas to defend the British Empire — a force substantially bigger than the combined troops of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the biggest voluntary army in history of Mankind. This book attempts to record the Indian contribution of its main fighting arms the Cavalry and Infantry regiments.

‘Public health’ investigates the determinants of health, born during the Enlightenment in the seventeenth/eighteenth century. But ‘public health’ is also policies, aiming at the improvement of a population’s health. There is a mutual interchange between public health as science and as politics. A brief historical background is followed by an analysis of the impacts of political changes during the first two decades of the twenty first century in Sweden. In 2005, a policy document accepted by all political parties except for the Moderate Party highlighted socio-economic factors and structural reforms to decrease the health gaps in the population. The general election in September 2006 resulted in a new majority in the parliament and a center-right coalition government, including the Moderates and three parties that had approved of the 2005 document. In 2007 a “new public health policy” was introduced. Its priority lists stressed individual behavior and the new policy should be incentives to work instead of “allowances”. The Public Health Institute got instructions in accordance with the new policy. The ten years following this policy change has seen public health policies and attitudes to research shifting almost year by year. The new policy met a counter-stream from the very beginning. Influenced by Michael Marmot’s WHO Commission on health inequalities, regional commissions started in Sweden, Recommendations how to decrease social health gaps was adopted with almost no opposition by regional health boards in 2012–2013. But new problems were now occupying politicians and media—how to finance the growth of the old, multi-sick part of the population and increasing costs for new medical technologies and drugs. Public health as an academic discipline was in the middle of this fluctuating political landscape with direct effects on what has been considered worth listening to or support by public money.

I stället för att publicera intressanta uppsatser skrivna på C- och D-nivån, som huvudregeln hittills varit för skriftserien, innehåller detta nummer av Socialhistoria i Linköping en handledning i den ädla konsten att skriva uppsats på B-, C-, och Dnivåema i historia. Handboken är författad av Lasse Kvarnström och Svante Kolsgård, lärare vid avdelningen för historia vid Institutionen för Tema vid Linköpings universitet, och är resultatet av ett kollektivt utvecklingsarbete inom avdelningen. Arbetet med handboken har delvis finansierats med anslag från Centrum för utvecklingspedagogik (CUP) vid Linköpings universitet.