The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

The purpose of the study was to identify and analyse the implications of client virtualisation in company environments. The study chose to focus on the aspects of the current hardware, license management, application management, maintenance work and the implications virtualization would have on these. The work in the study was chosen to limit itself to a Windows environment.The background to the study was due to a growing need to be more flexible and mobile in company environments and in collaboration with the University of Jönköping a problem description and the framing of questions was defined. The essay tooka qualitative initiative to comprehend the complexity of the problem at hand. The empirical data was collected from interviews, literature studies and laboratory work testing applications.

Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och analysera om det finns något samband mellan företags lönsamhet och dess kapitalstruktur, storlek eller branschtillhörigheten. Detta innebär att en empirisk studie kommer att ske på soliditet, omsättning samt branschtillhörigheten för att se hur och om det finns något samband mellan lönsamheten och dessa tre faktorer. Vidare är syftet även att undersöka om det kan finnas något samband mellan företags lönsamhet och företags standardavvikelse på räntabilitet.Metod: Undersökningen är en empirisk studie med en deduktiv kvantitativ och kvalitativ ansats. Empirin undersöks med olika statistiska metoder såsom regressionsanalys och korrelationsberäkning.Teori: Uppsatsen har utgått från teorier gällande kapitalstruktur och lönsamhet. Nyckeltalen som används från dessa teorier är soliditet respektive räntabilitet på eget kapital.Empiri: Data från de 20 största börsnoterade företagen på Stockholmsbörsen har samlats in från företagens årsredovisningar 2003-2007.

An excessive input of nutrients to lakes and other water bodies has created a problem with eutrophication in Sweden. Untreated, or partially treated, domestic sewage is a major source for discharge of phosphorus (P), which is the nutrient most frequently responsible for eutrophication of most fresh waters and the Baltic Sea. The waste water can be cleaned by filter materials, which have a high P-retention ability and which after saturation may be used as fertilizers. Four potentially suitable filter materials were tested in batch- and column experiments in this study. In the batch experiments, the following materials were shaken with waste water in time series ranging from 5 seconds to 60 minutes: coarse (1-4 mm) and fine (0-2 mm) Polonite® (heated bedrock from Poland); Filtralite® (light expanded clay aggregates with limestone added before burning); water cooled blast furnace slag (BF-slag) and BF-slag mixed with 10% burned limestone.

Background and problem discussion: Sustainability reporting has recently risen in importance and a rising number of companies choose to issue voluntary stand-alone sustainability reports. Their non-regulated nature increases the opportunity for management to angle the information in these disclosures to their own advantage. Lately the focus has shifted from examining what kind of information is provided in environmental disclosures, to analyzing how the information is presented.Purpose: The purpose is to examine if managers in the energy sector use optimistic tone when issuing sustainability reports. The aim is to find out if the tone applied in environmental disclosures is in congruence with either the environmental or economic performance or if an excessively positive tone is being used to mislead readers.Limitations: This study is limited to information found in environmental disclosures from private companies in the energy sector, issued in 2012 or 2013. Environmental performance is defined as the amount of CO2e emissions and economic performance refers to annual company revenues.Methodology: The quantification of optimistic tone is conducted using a content analysis, relying on a pre-specified wordlist and a pilot study.

In 1999 the Swedish Parliament decided about 15 environmental goals aimed to be achieved in time for the next generation. For example physical social planning must be based on programs and strategies how cultural-historical values has been attended, so called programs of cultural heritage. By law the Swedish municipalities are responsible for reaching these goals by creating program of cultural heritage. But only a few of the municipalities have these programs, meaning that many municipalities need to create programs of cultural heritage in the next five years.The aim of this report is to present a model of analysis on programs of cultural heritage in municipalities for preservation and development of cultural environments. By testing the model on the municipalities of Osby and Tomelilla methods on how to create a new program of cultural heritage or how to complete existing documents are formulated.One of the conclusions is that one document, program of cultural heritage, functions as landscape analysis, model of cultural valuation and strategy of developing cultural values.

In this work, a method was developed and evaluated for calculating the life of welds under the influence of fatigue loads from a vibration environment. Typically, a shaker table is used for testing a component against vibration loads. The shaker table creates a vibration environment that is defined in the frequency domain by a power spectrum.Similarly, a virtual vibration table can be used to calculate the same type of load environment, which can then be used to calculate the expected lifetime. The benefit of this method is that it can be used in design, as well as in simulation of tests before physical verification tests are carried out.Today there are methods for calculating fatigue life of non-welded base material, but since many components contain welded joints, there is a need to apply this method to those types as well. To achieve this, the thesis combines two different areas, which together provide a method for fatigue assessment of welds using a virtual shaker table.The methodology is carried out by modeling the component, and its welded joints, in a finite element program.

Three-dimensional computer graphics enjoys a wide range of applications of which games and movies are only few examples. By incorporating three-dimensional computer graphics in to a simulator the simulator is able to provide the operator with visual feedback during a simulation. Simulators come in many different flavors where flight and radar simulators are two types in which three-dimensional rendering of large terrains constitutes a central component.Ericsson Microwave Systems (EMW) in Skövde is searching for an algorithm that (a) can handle terrain data that is larger than physical memory and (b) has an adjustable error metric that can be used to reduce terrain detail level if an increase in load on other critical parts of the system is observed. The aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate existing algorithms for terrain rendering in order to find those that meet EMW: s requirements. The objectives are to (i) perform a literature survey over existing algorithms, (ii) implement these algorithms and (iii) develop a test environment in which these algorithms can be evaluated form a performance perspective.The literature survey revealed that the algorithm developed by Lindstrom and Pascucci (2001) is the only algorithm of those examined that succeeded to fulfill the requirements without modifications or extra software.

To fulfill the climate target that EU and the Swedish government have decided to apply, it becomes increasingly important that the energy efficiency of existing buildings and making new buildings energy efficient as possible. Of Sweden?s total energy consumption in 2011 was 40% used by residential and service. Of the 40% of the energy consumption was 60% used for heating and domestic hot water. A report from year 2012 shows that one reason why the heating volume is so great could be due to underestimating on the energy consumption for the heating in the planning of the building.

The cost of capital for traded companies is basically assessed on information from thefinancial market. Small and non-traded companies are lack of this necessary financialmarket information in order to determine an appropriate equity risk premium and tocompute the cost of capital.In the absence of financial information necessary for an external investor, it is difficult toevaluate a non-traded company with the Capital Asset Pricing model (CAPM), which isbased on the financial market information. It measures only the systematic risk, which isthe contribution of one share to the market risk of a portfolio. It is therefore important tofind models that reflect the small and non-traded companies? real business value and theirunique characteristics.

Staphylococcus aureus is the most clinically important Staphylococcus species and is associated with high mortality in patients with positive blood cultures. S. aureus bacteria may cause a variety of disease manifestations ranging from minor skin infections to life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia, meningitis, osteomyelitis, endocarditis, toxic shock syndrome (TSS) and sepsis. This microorganism belonging to the gram positive cocci may also be part of the normal flora. In Sweden, penicillinase-stable penicillins are the primary alternatives to treat S.

Hela det mänskliga genomet var sekvenserat i april 2003 och sedan dess har utvecklingen av genetisk testning avancerat snabbt. Sjuksköterskor kan komma att ha en central roll gällande att informera personer kring den genetiska testningen, rådgiva personer som genomgår genetisk testning och hjälpa dem att tolka resultaten. Genom att beskriva personers känslor kring att genomföra genetisk testning kan sjuksköterskor få hjälp till en ökad förståelse. Syftet var därför att beskriva personers känslor kring att genomföra en genetisk testning för genetiskt betingade sjukdomar med en möjlig dödlig utgång. För att få en överblick av det aktuella forskningsläget genomfördes en systematisk sökordsbaserad litteraturöversikt.

A patient simulator for testing anaesthesia machines has been developed at Maquet Critical Care AB, to reduce costly and time-consuming experiments on animals. The device simulates human lungs regarding lung dynamics and volume, uptake of anaesthetic agents and the production of carbon dioxide, heat and moisture. Further demands on the simulator are durability and size; the device shall be compact enough to be moveable.The resulting simulator fulfils the requirements and enables better repeatability and ability to test extreme cases than experiments on animals do.Uptake of the anaesthetic agent is achieved in a active carbon filter and controlled by regulating the flow. The flow is created by a regenerative blower and controlled using a proportional valve. The uptake can be set by the user or by a simple uptake model modified to recursively handle changes in the concentration of anaesthetic agent.Carbon dioxide is fed into the system from a tank by a mass flow regulator.

In order to increase the independence in everyday life of the elderly population, we have developed a lifting aid for loading in the private car trunk. Independence from outside assistance affects self-esteem in a positive direction and can help increase the quality of life for a large group of individuals. As people age and experience changes in performance, it is important that aids and support is available, particularly to reduce the experience of aging and it?s increasing physical limitations. The aim was to develop a function prototype characterized by simplicity, which facilitates loading of the private cartrunk.The project was conducted at the request of Autoadapt AB, which is one of the leadingactors in car adaptations for individuals with disablilities.

Extensively kept animals for meat production have the right to live in a good environment. Cattle (Bos Taurus) as social animals live in small herds in the wild. When holding animals extensively new problems have arisen regarding human ? animal interactions. One welfare problem is to be able to come close enough to the animals to investigate their health condition.