Future emission legislation puts great emphasis on increasing the efficiency of the engine, thereby reducing fuel consumption. The tribological contact between cylinder liner and piston ring is where an great amount of energy is lost due to friction, and by reducing these losses an reduction in fuel consumption can be achieved.The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the tested piston ring coatings against a plasma sprayed cylinder liner and rank these combinations of materials for friction and wear resistance. The coatings that were tested was Cr + Al2O3, (Al,Cr)N, two types of CrN and WC / C.The experimental tests were performed with a so-called pin-plate, where used oil with addition of an acidic mixture of sulfuric and nitric acid to mimic the acidic condensate formed when exhausts recirculate, were added with a continuous flow. The results were then analyzed by weighing, studies by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and profile measurements.The results from each material combination were that the plasma coated cylinder liner wears too aggressively in order to yield a ranking of the piston ring coatings based on the parameters of friction and wear resistance. It is therefore proposed that an alternative coating on the cylinder liner should be developed, lacking the large abrasive wear on piston rings and that can withstand the corrosive environment resulting in engines equipped with EGR.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge and understanding of free play or free fun time importance for children of age around five years in preschool, in order to promote children?s development and learning. The focus was on exploring and better understanding of teacher?s and educators? approach to the free fun play time as a tool in their educational work, and also about their own role in this context as well as analyzing of forms, rules and structures spontaneously created by groups of children having free play fun time. Another important moment of this study was to give more light on approaches to this issue in education theories by Piaget, Vygotsky and Freud among others.As to the practical experimental part of the study it has been performed at a preschool and kindergarten in a suburb at the outskirts of Stockholm, with four employed educators there and with groups of children of age around five.

The aim of this essay is to examine the attitudes towards publication of short stories, carried by the employees of Bokförlaget Forum, a randomly chosen Swedish publishing house. The study seeks to investigate the causes behind and consequences of the attitudes, as well as their generality. Through qualitative interviews, carried out with five of the company?s employees, the short story is defined as a problematic genre, mainly due to its low commercial success. The conclusions drawn from the interviews are put into a historical perspective, where the developments of the short story-genre, as well as that of the modern Swedish book market, are discussed.

Många människor har husdjur som sällskap och fritidsintresse och allt fler forskare har på senare tid börjat intressera sig för husdjurets betydelse för människans livskvalitet. Antrozoologin är en relativt ny vetenskap där man ägnar sig åt att studera relationen mellan djur och människa. Man har i olika undersökningar kunnat visa att husdjur har en positiv effekt på människans fysiska och psykiska välbefinnande och att djuret höjer livskvaliteten för många (Enders-Slegers, Paul, Podberseck, Serpell, 2000). I denna uppsats undersöks sociala relationer och livstillfredsställelse hos äldre personer med och utan husdjur. Finns det något samband mellan ägande av husdjur, livstillfredsställelse och sociala relationer? Är äldre personer med husdjur mer nöjda med sina sociala relationer samt mer tillfreds med livet än äldre personer utan husdjur? Känner sig äldre människor med husdjur mindre ensamma än de som inte har husdjur? Kan man se någon skillnad mellan män och kvinnor?.

Animal welfare in Sweden has gone through major changes during the later years. In 2004, Swedish Animal Welfare Agency took over the central responsibility for the animal welfare from the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and in 2007 the board again became the central authority for animal welfare in Sweden.Even the practical supervision has changed, from the 1 of January 2009 the supervision is to be performed by the county administrative boards, instead of by the individual municipalities. Since 2006 every horse in the European Union has to have an identification card, in Sweden called a ?horse passport? which describes the color and markings of the horse as well as any veterinary treatments.The ELOF-project, a collaborative project between the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the county administrative boards, intends to make the animal welfare supervision effective, standardised, fair and risk-based. Because of the takeover of the supervision and of the ELOF-project the Örebro County Administrative Board has began to make an inventory of the number of horses and horsefarms in the county. Another Ethology and Animal Welfare-student and I did, in collaboration with the county administrative board created a checklist that in connection with the inventory will lead to a risk-based animal welfare supervision.

The purpose of this study in the psychology of religion is to explore the process of an individual?s shift in orienting system, from a religious to an atheistic. The materials used are autobiographical accounts obtained from two books. One that has been used as a primary source and one as a secondary. By using Rambo?s process oriented theory of religious conversion relevant themes and categories were chosen and later subjected to further analysis using Pargament?s theory of religion and coping.

The study aims to reduce energy consumption in apartment buildings where individual metering and charging of heat is applied. The aim is to develop planning and design for individual metering and charging in apartment buildings.The study is based on literature review, interviews and case study that include analysis of existing documents. Interviews were carried out with the property developer and the involved consultants who planned the apartment building Yasuragi. To investigate the differences the condominium association has noted in heat consumption between flats, the debit values of the heat were used to discern which houses that were furthest from the average consumption. On these flats there were temperature measurements and thermal photo shoots made for discriminating behavior and possible construction techniques which could be the explanation for the heat spread.Boverket shows that the consumption of heat can be reduced by 10-20% after insertion of individual metering and charging in an apartment block.

IKEA HaparandaTornio employ some two-hundred people in its furniture retail store.Keeping track of staff statistics and employee information has previously been achievedthrough the use of a basic Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet. The store?s human resourcesdepartment requested an upgrade to this system with the hope of speeding up andsimplifying the administrative process, as well as to make it easier to monitor HR-relatedtarget statistics. The following report documents the development process of that upgrade ascarried out by the author. The project draws on research in usability design and cognitivepsychology to develop a user-friendly interface.

This paper addresses the need to review the modern presentation of textile archaeology in museums. It is time to look at textiles in archaeology with new eyes. The reality behind archaeological textilestudy is holistic, embracing many different aspects of society. The presentation of textiles has in my opinion become old-fashioned. I will show in my paper that Jonathan Adams? `seven constraints´ model, developed for research on ancient ships, can also be applied to textile research.

This paper addresses the need to review the modern presentation of textile archaeology in museums. It is time to look at textiles in archaeology with new eyes. The reality behind archaeological textilestudy is holistic, embracing many different aspects of society. The presentation of textiles has in my opinion become old-fashioned. I will show in my paper that Jonathan Adams? `seven constraints´ model, developed for research on ancient ships, can also be applied to textile research.

This paper addresses the need to review the modern presentation of textile archaeology in museums. It is time to look at textiles in archaeology with new eyes. The reality behind archaeological textilestudy is holistic, embracing many different aspects of society. The presentation of textiles has in my opinion become old-fashioned. I will show in my paper that Jonathan Adams? `seven constraints´ model, developed for research on ancient ships, can also be applied to textile research.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the experience of art students and their attitudes and use of information during the last years of their Master?s degree. I also examine their opinions about the art education in general. The theoretical framework encompasses a sociocultural approach within the field of psychology-pedagogy and library- as well as information science. The empirical material has been collected through qualitative interviews with seven students studying at an art school in Sweden.

The background of this study is the fact that it nowadays is more common to grow wheat after wheat. Usually we plow every autumn to remove the straw, and we wanted to study the effect of alternative methods to do it. We have done this experiment to answer the question if no tillage is better than conventional plowing. The results of the field experiment indicate that there is a link between plant establishment and the choice of equipment, but also a higher weed pressure in experimental plots with only ground tillage. The equipments which left much straw on the top of the ground the problems with fungi were more severe.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how people with insecure employment affect the psychological contract in the perspective of workers' experience. The questions in this study were: how does a person with insecure employment perceive the psychological contract and what consequences dose an insecure employment have on the psychological contract. The study was a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the absent relationship that existed between the participants and the employer was assumed to be affected by insecure employment. The result revealed that one of the consequences was falling confidence and less support to the employer as an effect of insecure employment and psychological contract.

The current planning philosophy is based on a political utopic modernism founded during the first part of the 20th century. The focus is, in planning a defined area, to maximize the internal efficiency and to create a competitivesociety. During the latter part of the former century globalization changed the context, thus creating the need for a new way of approaching physical planning. This paper shows that the historical and philosophicalmetaphor of flow can be applied to meet the demands in the global city. It also shows how the edge, as where interaction takes place, is an important part of the content that has to be defined.